Leverage Team Ficlet Collection
by akblake
Summary: This is my collection of ficlets- just little ideas which begged to be written down, but were too small to be let out on their own as full stories. They cover different team members and situations, though a good many will be Parker and Eliot, either separately or together in romance or friendship :) Will never be finished as I'll be adding more as the ideas demand to be written!
1. Grieving

**Disclaimer over entire work- not mine, just playing with them. If I owned these guys, we'd still be seeing new episodes and the official relationship would absolutely be Parker/Eliot :) Reviews are the love of my life and make my muses giggle maniacally (really, you should hear these wenches!). Enjoy!**

They had been an official team for three years now and Eliot only just figured it out. He would have called himself all kinds of stupid for not noticing, but it was Parker, and no one noticed a pattern of hers if she didn't want them to. Even their most trained observer of human nature, Sophie, didn't notice that Parker disappeared twice a year. He didn't mean just going out of town on a trip disappearing, but the kind where she left every tracking and communication device behind and disappeared without even a whisper of her whereabouts in the underground community.

This year, though, Eliot prepared for it. He couldn't track her, but he would be ready to check and see if she'd returned tomorrow and raise hell itself if she wasn't back safe and sound. He stayed at Nate's under the guise of wanting to try altering recipe in his well-appointed kitchen, and soothed his nerves with the repetitive motion of chopping vegetables. It was ten o'clock and Nate had already retired (passed out) for the night upstairs, so the entire apartment was peacefully silent as he worked. He didn't have a particular recipe in mind and ended up making more a pile of finely diced produce than anything recognizable as food.

A honed sixth sense and faint scent of jasmine had him looking first, before he let instinct react, to find Parker perched on the back of the sofa. Her eyes were red and she was hunched over miserably. Eliot quickly dropped the knife he hadn't remembered reaching for and hurried over, already looking for blood from whatever kind of injury was responsible for her appearance.

"Parker, sweetheart, are you okay?" He knew that the question sounded a little stupid, but he just couldn't help asking. After her disappearances, once Eliot knew what to search his memory for, she'd always appeared subdued and quiet, but they'd always written it off as 'being Parker'. Now he understood that they'd done her a grave injustice- she may be Parker, but she had feelings just like the rest of them and deserved to be looked after just the same, not written off and pushed aside.

Parker remained sitting and allowed his handling of her person, passively letting him check that she didn't have any hidden injuries. "Tonight…" she started, and then had to swallow past a tight throat. "Today is the day my brother died. He loved Superman and how he could fly over the rooftops, so I always climb the tallest building I can find in whatever city I'm in and watch the rooftops. This year I did, but it just wasn't right, there was something missing," Parker leaned her head against Eliot's chest and let his shirt absorb the tears that leaked out. He'd pulled her into a hug once he realized that her pain was emotional, not physical.

"Why wasn't it right?" Eliot's asked, and she pressed her ear against his chest to hear the words rumble. It was soaking in that this is what she'd needed, not the solitary comfort of the wind skirling around a sky scraper's rooftop.

Parker wrapped her arms around his waist and gently squeezed her thanks as more tears slipped free, "I have a family now and don't have to grieve alone," she explained, and to Eliot it truly did explain everything.


	2. Fly

Parker took a running leap off the building, ignoring her teammates' cries and yells coming over her earbud. They always said the same things- don't go so fast, why did she insist on jumping, couldn't she just use the door… on and on in the same vein but they just didn't get it. She wasn't suicidal or stupid. Parker knew the exact weight limit of every rope she owned and always made sure to plan for an extra person's weight on it, just in case, and she knew every stitch of the rig she used. She did, after all, do all the work on it herself, even if _they_ kept forgetting that.

She spread her arms as the wind rushed past, pulling at her hair and whipping tears to her wide open eyes. This is what she loved the most; the feeling that she could just fly free of the rope and escape gravity altogether. The blissful few seconds passed, her braking system kicked in, and gravity gently reminded her that it was still there. Parker knew, intellectually, that she'd never be able to fly, but that wouldn't ever stop her from loving that euphoric feeling.


	3. Wanted

Hardison knew that he couldn't bust heads to protect his teammates, plan rings around their many enemies, sweet talk people into forgetting their own names, or steal the crown jewels off the Queen's own head. He was perfectly comfortable admitting what he couldn't do, but that's because he looked after his teammates in his own unique way. Within their first year, he'd deleted or corrupted most of the electronic evidence from his teammates' early exploits. Even Eliot's service record was thoroughly scrubbed to appear as if he'd merely spent his four years in and then was honorably discharged, unremarkable in every way, and had altered the record's photograph to look more like a guy who only somewhat resembled Eliot.

In their second year together, after scrambling to set up their new office thanks to that bastard Sterling, Hardison started his new pet project. They all had warrants and rewards for their captures, and one day that would end up biting them in their blind spot, as Sterling tried to do. He wasn't any kind of threat and the team had laughed off the man's attempt, but eventually five criminals of their caliber would begin to draw in hunters. Well, he'd decided to eliminate that threat.

Hardison worked for three weeks to replace Sophie's warrant photo and description in Luxembourg, under the name of Anna Crawley, with one for a photo he'd spoofed. For such a small system, they had backups by the dozen, and he'd had to search out and alter each one by hand. Spain, France, Greece, Russia, and the UK were a virtual vacation, having all updated to a "more secure" system in the past year. Hardison had a laughing fit when he discovered what they called "secure". Those warrants too were altered, along with appropriately doctored photos, and Hardison treated himself to a new gaming system for getting it all done in two months.

His next target was Parker, and he'd had a difficult time keeping her from finding out what he was doing in his spare time. She'd somehow gotten it into her head that he needed her constantly underfoot, no doubt a mistaken impression she'd taken from something Sophie had said, and he eventually had to resort to telling her that Eliot had hidden knives throughout Nate's apartment. Her search for the knives and the ensuing explosions from Eliot (for Parker having moving them) and from Nate (for Eliot having hid them in the first place) were enough of a distraction that she forgot her original idea.

Hardison easily found Parker's warrant in Brazil, but ran into a roadblock- it was on paper, actual _paper_ of all barbaric things, and he'd had to pay a forger he knew to go in and alter the documents. Parker was now Parquet in that country, and a large busty brunette (styled after one of his guild member's avatar). Her warrants in Egypt, Yemen, China, and Denmark were simply deleted from the systems as their setups were shockingly haphazard and didn't include even a single backup, paper or otherwise. France, Germany, and the UK were zipped through and alterations placed within days; he'd already installed back doors when cleaning up Sophie's files. The last few took nearly a month as jobs intruded in his private time, but he eventually got Peru, Romania, and Turkey before allowing himself a week to sleep and relax. He even caught up with his guild and orchestrated a few raids.

Eliot, though, was going to be his piece de resistance and he'd saved their hitter for last. He wasn't wanted by countries so much as _people_, and he couldn't just hack a person. Hardison ended up having to play the stock market like a fiddle for four days to raise enough capital, as he objected on principal to just handing over his own money, and then the games began. He set up for the criminal families in Russia and Serbia to discover that someone had stolen much of their empires' funds, thanks to the thief Hardison hired all evidence lead back to the opposite family, and ended up eliminating each other in the ensuing war. Eliot had appeared rather surprised read about that in the _Boston Herald_, but had thankfully shrugged it off as a coincidence given the article's bare coverage. Myanmar was the work of just a few hours as he tweaked the official warrant to appear obsolete, a ghost in the system due to the country's ongoing conflicts.

Hardison simply paid off the hit order from the patriarch of Armenia's Demirjian family. Four million USD and Eliot could once again show his face in Armenia without risk of being sent home in pieces. For being an evil crime boss, Papa Demirjian was actually a rather cool cat in Hardison's book- it was all business with the man and money settled the blood debt.

Pakistan, though, had required both money and smooth manipulating. Rescinding an Islamic death sentence wasn't a walk in the park and Hardison considered it the crown jewel of his project. He had to invest six months and uncounted millions, but he'd managed to become a benefactor of the school which keeps record of death sentences without offending any religious sensibilities, endear himself with the faculty and staff, and convince the head of that department that the fatwa was actually false, invalidating it.

Hardison had been particularly pleased with himself once confirmation had come through, and it had bled through to their next job. His teammates didn't seem to enjoy his self-satisfied commentary over the earbuds, especially as the job hadn't required much technical wizardry, but Hardison simply couldn't be bothered to care.

China took one week, mostly finding the tiny-assed town which had issued the warrant, and it was as easy as cracking a sixteen-digit alpha-numeric code to pay off the town's officials. Cheap, even, as it only cost half a million USD.

Hardison congratulated himself on having finished his pet project, and relished that he'd protected his team in his own genius way. They now literally were starting fresh. No hostile countries, no bounty hunters, no hidden assassins… damn, he was _good_!

To celebrate, at the next post-job celebration at the bar, Hardison decided to relax and get drunk as he had absolutely nothing he had left to do. He'd lost count of how many shots he'd had, but thought he'd also had three beers based on the empty bottles in front of him, but he couldn't get them to hold still long enough to get an accurate count. By the time he got eight different totals and looked up, the team had disappeared back to their homes, and Nate was locking up.

Next thing he knew, he was being helped into Nate's apartment as the world insisted on spinning to the left. Nate settled him on the couch, tucked a blanket over him and a pillow under his head, and leaned down to whisper his parting words before Hardison surrendered to unconsciousness, "I took care of Iceland."

* * *

**Note: I used fatwa in this ficlet as it was used in the episode ****_The Studio Job_****- a death sentence, as opposed to its many other possible meanings. No disrespect to a noble religion intended.**


	4. Selfless

No one knew what she did in her free time, and that's the way she liked it. Mysterious, enigmatic, sometimes aloof… all descriptions she'd heard before. Philanthropist, however, wasn't a word tied to Sophie Devereaux or any of her aliases, yet here she was- spending her rare day off helping to coach Sister Anne's class production of _The Little Mermaid_. Not her usual fare, granted, but far more rewarding than being on the stage herself, especially here in Los Angeles where critics abounded.

She'd convinced the Sister, and the entire facility, to keep her name private and out of any publications. Sophie wasn't concerned about her teammates finding out about her volunteer work, but she strongly felt that honest charity desired no recognition and took great pains to remain out of this limelight. She had a healthy ego already, given her very self-satisfying work in the past year, and wanted her work with Sister Anne's special needs children to remain anonymous. Her greatest reward wasn't money or diamonds, those could be bought or stolen with only half a thought. But the radiant smile she was gifted with for helping Elise remember her lines? _That_ was a treasure beyond measure and Sophie Devereaux considered herself to be one of the richest women alive.


	5. Target

Eliot calmly sat at the conference table and waited as his teammates slowly trickled out the door, and the moment that Nate stepped into the elevator to head home (or at least to the closest bar) he burst into immediate action. He'd only have a short time before his anticipated visitor showed up and he had to have everything ready. The roof of their office building was the perfect stage and Eliot carefully set the scene to provide the most irresistible target.

Barely ten minutes after he'd finished his work and retreated to cover, the access door swung open and light footsteps made the barest whisper on the roof's asphalt. Eliot could hear the faint scraping of a lock pick followed by the lock's click. Barely three seconds, though he deliberately didn't choose the most difficult lock on the market, and he grinned in anticipation. His target made a slight noise, either surprise or pleasure, at discovering a second locked box stored within the first. This one was more difficult as it had an old-fashioned tumbler lock and his target was forced to spend a full minute cracking it.

Eliot moved into position, ready to spring his surprise, and waited with a patience borne from years of practice as he pictured the sequence of events. His target would have been distracted by the more obvious of the box's contents, spending time examining and appraising; only after several minutes passed would the second object be discovered. A few minutes to review and… showtime.

Parker rounded the building's air conditioning, folded paper in one hand, and something glittery clenched in her other fist. Her face was perplexed and when she caught sight of Eliot her expression didn't clear. "What's going on?" was all she asked.

He motioned to the table he'd painstakingly set up, "I wanted to ask you on a date." Eliot was uncharacteristically blunt, but knew that Parker wouldn't really understand his intentions if he didn't outright state them. She didn't understand flirting, given how many times she'd ignored Hardison's advances, and didn't understand physical advances, her stabbing in Prague not entirely due to the man's slimy nature, so Eliot had to think like Parker- unorthodox.

Parker circled the table and took in the brazier he'd set up, item still clenched with a death grip in her left hand. "A... date?" she asked, rolling the word around in her mouth, "People only ask someone out on a date if they like that person, right?" he simply nodded. "So, do you like me, Eliot?" Parker couldn't believe her own interpretation, and desperately hoped Eliot would explain before she ended up making a fool of herself. Crazy was a shell she cultivated, but foolish? The streets ate the foolish and only the smart ones survived.

Eliot lit the brazier and let its warm glow illuminate the area. "I more than like ya'. I want to date you and see if we make a good match, like that necklace you're holding." Her hand involuntarily pulled tight to her chest, as if afraid that he'd take away her prize. "I ain't gonna take back a gift, Parker, and the Kyoto Star needs a beauty just as bright to wear it."

Parker looked startled at that and paused in thought. "Okay, so how does this date thing go?" She'd been on one in her life, and it had been a complete disaster- the guy only wanted to talk about his job, accounting, and there hadn't even been any embezzling. Boring! She'd figured if that's what "normal" people did then she could happily live without it and immediately swore off dating. Perhaps it was time to change her mind?

He smiled, an actual smile that crinkled up his eyes, and waved her to a chair at the table. Eliot had thought long and hard to come up with an activity which Parker would enjoy and had hit upon an inspiration from his past. "I thought that we could just enjoy the rooftop and roast marshmallows. Sound good?"

More at ease now that she knew the date's outline, Parker happily accepted the roasting skewer he offered and snatched her first fluffy victim from the bag on the table. She thrust the marshmallow directly into the fire and watched with wide, delighted eyes as it started to melt and burn. Best date ever!

"If you want to _eat_ a toasted marshmallow, sweetheart, you gotta get it above the fire," Eliot stated and demonstrated with his own treat. A few moments later, he pulled back a perfectly browned marshmallow only to have it snatched off the skewer and popped into Parker's mouth. He simply watched her eyes light up with delight, both at the treat and at the theft, and loaded up another marshmallow. Parker's had by now melted into the fire and she stabbed another marshmallow onto her skewer, complete with tiny pretend shrieks of agony on the marshmallow's behalf, and thrust the second one directly into the fire again.

Second marshmallow of Eliot's stolen, and he decided to take a break- too many at one time and she'd only make herself ill. "You want to wear that necklace?" he offered, and watched her ignore her marshmallow's dying drips and focus on the treasure she still clenched in her left hand. He remained still as her eyes flicked over to him, then had to force himself not to flinch as her fist was thrust in front of his face.

Parker kept a close watch as Eliot gently pried her fingers apart to pull the massive diamond free and then focused on the massive diamond as he fastened the clasp around her neck. She barely even felt as he lifted her hair over the chain, being more engrossed in studying the fire's reflection in the facets. "How did you get this? I tried back when it was on display in the London Museum, but they'd brought Yakuza guards and I couldn't get close enough."

"It was my second retrieval," Eliot explained and enjoyed how her attention immediately shifted to focus on him. "When I got back, my employer tried to double cross me with a dozen goons. I settled the dispute and kept the diamond as payment." He canted his roasting skewer to allow Parker to steal the treat he'd just toasted, but wasn't prepared in the least for her to lunge forward and smash her lips to his. Eliot tasted blood and gently cupped her shoulders to push her back a little, stroking the side of her face to let her know that it wasn't a rejection.

Parker popped the marshmallow in her mouth to free her fingers and reached up to finger a length of hair that had fallen into Eliot's face from her impact. "Why do people enjoy kissing if it hurts?" she asked, genuinely confused. Her teeth had smashed into her lower lip and it had been less than pleasant.

"It doesn't if you do it like this," Eliot coached, sliding his hands from her shoulders up to the sides of her face. He leaned close and gently pressed his lips to hers before pulling back. "Better?" Voice far more husky than a moment ago, Eliot genuinely hoped that he hadn't blown the date.

Parker blinked dazedly a few times before she registered his question. "Better. So much better. _Way_ better," she babbled. Parker had never been in this situation before and couldn't get her mind in gear to figure out what happened next. His soft chuckle brought her attention fully back on the situation and she quickly covered her nervousness by immolating another marshmallow.

"It's alright darlin. I ain't gonna ask for more, and you can kiss me whenever you want, okay?" Eliot was an excellent judge of body language, as any fight depended on reading an opponent's moves before they happened, and he could easily discern that Parker was both interested and didn't know how to proceed.

Parker nodded eagerly and leaned in, this time gently, to get another kiss. It made her heart race just like breaking into an Aries 5000 triple-armed safe, and she could easily become addicted. If that's how kissing felt, why did people want to ever stop? "How did you know I'd steal your wallet?" Parker asked, as it was how she'd found the note about a treasure on the rooftop.

"I know _you_, Parker. You've already lifted three of my wallets this month and you had that look in your eye again tonight. I know you're not a candles and flowers kind of gal," he laughed at her expression of disgust at the typical romantic ideal, "so I went for a little safe-cracking, diamonds, and fire. Did you have fun?" Eliot decided to call it a night on their first date as the firewood in the brazier was nearly exhausted, which meant that Parker's fun massacring defenseless marshmallows would come to an end.

Parker nodded ecstatically. He'd let her play with fire, steal his marshmallows, crack _two_ safes, gave her the fifth most valuable diamond necklace in the world, and helped her discover her newest passion- kissing Eliot. "Best date I've ever had!" she enthused, "I never had toasted marshmallows before and they're tasty. And I like kissing you."

Eliot outright laughed at her antics, "And I like kissing you too, Parker. Would you want to go on another date with me?" Again, plain speaking was his best policy even if it wasn't his personal style. He got another forceful kiss from Parker, though this time she stopped short of causing damage, and took that as a yes. He patted himself on the back for acquiring his target and looked forward to keeping up with her for a long time; she was beautiful, complex, unorthodox… a million different things, and Eliot could happily spend a lifetime discovering them all.


	6. Cold

Eliot had never been so thankful to have a job done. He'd kept them safe, found out where they took Hardison, and they'd taken down the truly deplorable excuses for human beings. The cold though, inside and out, had seeped into his bones and he just couldn't shake it. His mental discipline usually kept him on a fairly even keel, and he had coping down to a fine art form, but the experience had brought several memories out of the shadows in his mind and they didn't want to go back.

He'd turned up his house's heat, had even run a bath as hot as he could stand, and still couldn't feel warm. A slight disturbance in the air had him spinning around primed to act. Eliot immediately relaxed though and settled for disgruntled exasperation. "Parker! What the hell?" he yelled, irritably shoving his hair out of his face. Parker simply ignored his anger and turned to unlock and open his front door to admit Hardison. "What are y'all doing? I didn't invite you in, and I _know _I never told you guys where I live. Just turn around and go!"

Parker calmly regarded Eliot while Hardison tinkered over at the TV stand. "No," she flatly stated and remained square in his way when he tried to move around her. She knew that he wouldn't hurt her, and if he got to Hardison he'd have no compunction about bodily throwing him out. Without Hardison her plan would fall apart, so she played human wall.

"Parker move, I don't want you two in here." Eliot demanded, trying again to flank the agile thief. He didn't want to just grab her as the last time he'd had to do it to preserve their con she had spent an hour unsettled and even more uncommunicative than usual. He sighed, "Look, I just want to relax, unwind, and enjoy the silence of my own house."

Hardison finished his changes and perched on the arm of Eliot's couch, laptop in hand. "No, you really don't. You only think you do because it's what you've always done, but you'll only putter around a bit, get nothing done, and end up feeling as bad as you do now."

Parker gently shuffled Eliot to sit on his couch, the only one of them aside from Sophie who could get away with manhandling him. She cut in on Hardison's explanation. "Eliot, we're your friends and we care about you. Let us help, please?" She knew that the wide eyes and pleading expression she'd learned from Sophie was cheating, but she felt strongly about helping him. She'd seen his expression, the shadows in his eyes, when he thought they were all occupied watching the frat boy being lead out. If there was one thing in life that Parker recognized, it was shadows in the soul and she wouldn't leave a friend to deal with that alone.

Eliot gave in ungracefully, fully aware that he didn't have it in him to hurt Parker. He couldn't even bring himself to hurt Hardison even if their verbal battles were stuff of legend. He let himself be parked in the middle of his couch, Parker leaning against his left side, and felt the cold in his bones start to warm. She didn't cuddle, just leaned and appeared engrossed in the movie. Halfway through the second movie, Hardison had shifted off the couch's arm and took up a casual post against his right side. Eliot simply let his eyes slide closed, movie dialogue tuned out to a meaningless murmur, and relaxed in the soul-warming feeling of having friends who cared enough to help even when he couldn't admit that he needed it.


	7. Chess

Nate looked forward to his weekly online chess match, though it rarely ever happened on time. Either he'd be late, delayed by complications with one of his jobs, or his opponent would be delayed by his own employer. Nevertheless, one would log in and patiently wait for the other to join, sometimes for hours on end, but neither became impatient or gave up. It was their ritual. They'd play a single game if the week had gone easy, other times they'd play five or six in a row to let off steam from a particularly rough week.

Nate never spoke with his online partner, though the site did have an area just for that, and preferred the conversation of strategy- two generals meeting on the field of battle and speaking with pawns, rooks, and bishops. He won as many games as he lost but it wasn't about keeping score; it was about keeping a connection in the only way he could. They actually played a much cleaner game online than they ever had in reality, him and jim925.


	8. Cayman Vacation

Even though he apologized to his fellow teammates, Alec Hardison was a very pleased man. The other four weren't able to get a return flight from the Caymans to the US immediately and had to stay overnight, catching a ten am flight the next morning. This left Alec with a completely empty office, and absolutely no one who would call and interrupt his "alone time" at his apartment. Well, not exactly alone.

"Oh my God!" Cheryl gushed with glee as she walked though his apartment's door. Once he'd gotten his teammates settled in their suites and off the coms, he'd gone back to meet her in the GenaGrow parking lot. A little flirting was followed by an enthusiastically-accepted invitation to come over and play the new expansion pack with him. "Is that the new XJ7? I didn't think they would be released until December!" Cheryl had her nose barely an inch away from his computer, justifiably impressed with it.

Alec grinned, "Sure is, mama. I have a friend who knows someone who knows someone… anyway, I'm mostly beta testing it before the main release. That thing is _sick_ though! It makes the-" he cut himself off before he could actually finish that thought. A normal person, even a geek, shouldn't know what servers the Pentagon used, much less how his pre-release (stolen) and already customized system far surpassed them. "Well, it makes the game play unbelievable," he tried to cover.

Cheryl didn't appear to notice his stutter as she'd moved on to inspecting his A/V setup. Alec just plopped down in the middle of his couch and watched her very shapely form lean around his electronics. Perv? Hell yeah, but he'd never had a complaint. "So, you wanna play now?" he prompted and they both got down to working through one of the tougher quest lines.

Ten hours later, after a successful completion of their quest, Alec suddenly had a lapful of very excited and aroused woman. He coaxed her off the couch and down the hall to his bedroom where he could demonstrate that his manual dexterity wasn't limited to a keyboard. Oh yes, he'd certainly be completing a very rewarding quest tonight, but not one in the game!

If he had a Cheshire grin on his face when he met his teammates at the office, they were far too distracted to comment, and he wasn't going to enlighten them as to how he spent his own little vacation. They'd all just be jealous of his skills anyway.


	9. Origami

It had been a draining job in Belgrade and though Sophie dragged a protesting Nate to Paris, the rest of the team had decided to head straight for home instead. Hardison had mumbled something about sleeping for a week as he nearly fell into a cab at the airport, and Eliot had disappeared once they'd disembarked the plane. Parker was left to make her own way to their office alone, lost in thought and memories. She couldn't figure out why she didn't want to go to her empty warehouse but simply accepted that the office had become more of a home than she'd ever had. Four people wanted her company, depended on her, trusted her to do her job, and accepted her.

Parker walked into her office and stopped cold, someone had been in her area and _moved_ things! She immediately scanned the area: top left desk drawer one millimeter ajar, and her desk chair had been twirled around to face away from the door. Cautiously, she crept into the room to investigate. Each footstep was placed with care, ready to bolt if anything proved amiss; no one should have been able to get into their offices without the team knowing it, and none of them ever violated the sanctity of her office. Parker used a single finger to tease open the desk drawer, standing at an angle just in case anything was rigged to explode or pop out.

She found, on top of her neatly stacked and ordered supply of pens, a small paper frog. It was gently plucked out of the drawer and the moment her fingertips touched it, she could tell that it wasn't just any paper- it was money. Someone had folded money into an origami frog, and judging from the optically variable ink she could see on one of its little 'feet', the money in question was a one hundred dollar bill. "What?" she murmured to herself. Parker wasn't about to decline beautiful money, but who left it in her drawer? She went to sit at her desk chair and discovered another surprise: an intricately-folded rose, also in US currency green.

Parker gently cradled the beautiful rose as she sank into her chair. A lifetime's infatuation with currency allowed her to discern three bills making up the bloom, and all of them were one hundred dollar notes as well. Now she truly was baffled. None of her teammates had demonstrated an ability to do origami, much less at this level of mastery, and none of the grey-hat thieves would think about just giving money away. She shrugged- not enough information to guess, and obsessing over questions which she couldn't answer wasn't her way. Parker would remain observant and simply wait to see if new clues presented themselves.

She raided Sophie's stash of crystal vases and lovingly arranged the rose, on its wire stem, in the small vase. It went on the corner of her desk where she could look up and admire it, and the little frog was stationed just beside the vase. Her pretties would stay safely within sight.

No new clues presented themselves in the next weeks; no one appeared to pay more attention than normal to her office or its additions. Parker relaxed her watch and simply enjoyed her role in the jobs that Nate lined up for them, pushing the mystery to the back of her mind. The next time her office was disturbed she very nearly missed it.

They were all sitting around the conference table after their harrowing flight to the Cayman Islands and back, though Parker felt that she'd certainly gotten the worst end of it. They'd all been scared about being blown out of the sky, but _she_ was the one who got thrown around the cargo hold. Suitcases? Absolutely not suitable cushioning to land on! Her own role had been largely ignored, the accountant was safely ensconced in a hotel room courtesy of Hardison, their first class return flight had also been set up, and all four of them had slept nearly the entire flight back home. She'd taken an isolated seat near the back of the section, Sophie and Nate holding court in the front, and Eliot had escaped to an aisle seat near the middle to better flirt with the flight attendant until exhaustion had claimed him too.

Hardison had met them at the airport with Lucille and they all headed back to the Leverage offices. Parker had even tried to be sociable, drinking a bit of coffee with the others, but sleeping upright in the plane's seat had allowed her bruised ribs and muscles to stiffen up, pain making her slightly cranky. She'd left for the dark quiet of her office after just a few minutes.

Parker walked into her office and carefully sat back in her chair, thanking Hardison for having ordered one with fantastic lumbar support, when she noticed that something wasn't quite right. She sat up abruptly and examined her flower's arrangement- in the past weeks, she'd added little sprigs of fake leaves to keep her rose company, and someone had disturbed them to add a second beautiful rose. This one was in a slightly different style than the first, but still lovely, and still uncirculated US currency. She had to slightly separate the petals to see better as she hadn't bothered to click on her office's light, but this one was made from six fifty dollar bills to replicate a wild rose. "You are so beautiful," Parker crooned as she brought it to her nose and sampled its aroma. Cotton rag paper, slightly acrid ink… intoxicating! She carefully arranged it in the vase so that it could also share greenery with her first rose and smiled happily- now her rose won't ever get lonely!

She turned her thoughts towards who could have snuck it into her office. Nate? No, his drinking usually left his hands too unsteady for such intricate work. Sophie? No, she'd have added a touch of gold gilt and a few diamonds. Hardison? Hmm… maybe, he did have attention to detail and dexterous fingers, but rarely ever paid attention to anything that wasn't electronic. Eliot? Also unlikely as the money hadn't been cut with a knife and he didn't seem the type to do anything as fiddly as origami. Parker sighed. She'd eliminated all her teammates and wasn't any closer to discovering her gift-giver's identity. More observation would be necessary.

The third time Parker noticed an addition to her office, she didn't really notice it. Well, she did, but was too drugged to properly care. She'd been dropped off at their offices after her release from the rehab facility and was still bouncing around on cloud nine. Hardison and Eliot, her two "volunteered" caretakers, had secured the front office's doors and retreated to watch a montage of sports in the conference room. They let her hop, sing, twirl, and swoop to her heart's content all through the offices until she finally wound down and crashed on the small sofa in Eliot's office. She woke up several hours later to find that someone had covered her with a blanket and wedged a decorative pillow under her head.

Parker had crankily annoyed the two men, poking Eliot and stealing Hardison's beer, until she was banished to her office. She could rejoin them once her mood stabilized, but for everyone's peace of mind wasn't allowed to leave the offices. There on her desk, opposite Eric her little origami frog, was a new addition she fuzzily remembered seeing earlier. She picked up the little figure and examined it, then grinned with delighted surprise. It was a tiny statue of Anubis, a dead ringer for the one she'd stolen from the Cairo Museum four years ago, made up of tightly folded bank notes. She couldn't tell how many or which denomination, but it had to be more than a few as the work was incredibly dense. He went back in his place on the opposite side of her vase, "Nubie, meet Eric-with-a-C; Eric, meet Nubie. No fighting!" she cheerfully introduced her two friends before putting Anubis on the desktop.

Parker couldn't tell how long she sat and just admired her collection, chin resting on arms folded on her desk, but she loved every tiny detail. All the precise folds, crisp new bills, the shade of green that only money had, and thought that this was the very best art- beautiful as well as valuable in its own right. If whoever kept leaving her pretty things had this good of taste, perhaps she'd be better off not discovering who it was? If she revealed him or her that may be the end of her surprises!

By the time eighteen months passed, Parker had a dozen different roses in her vase and her collection of little friends had grown to five. She'd nearly driven Nate and Eliot crazy when they'd had to blow up their offices, commandeering Sophie's earbud and repeatedly demanding that they save the collection on her desk. It got to the point where Nate simply handed over his earbud to Hardison and took himself out of their chatter. Eliot, though, promised that he'd already packed every single one of them safely in a box which he'd handed off to Nate before going back to set all the explosives in their offices.

She'd zealously guarded her box of origami money until they resettled in their new offices above McRory's bar. Her new office was in what used to be loft 1A, and had a lovely window which opened wide enough for her to escape through if necessary. Parker had immediately unpacked her treasures: roses in a larger vase she'd appropriated from Sophie's collection, and her little figurines all placed in their favorite locations. By the time she was finished, she had a bit of origami everywhere she looked and smiled to herself with satisfaction.

When she came in the next day to find an intricate lily on her desk, she turned right around and went looking for her target. She found him in his office, seemingly engrossed in a novel, and barely gave him time to put the book down before jumping into his lap and giving him a hug. "Thank you, it's so beautiful!" she exclaimed and watched as his confusion changed to a rueful grin.

"You figured it out?" Eliot asked, redirecting her knee to a less painful location.

Parker nodded rapidly, "Yep. I watched and paid attention; Hardison couldn't have left the fourth rose as he was doing recon in New Orleans at the time, Nate couldn't have left the little dragon as he shakes too much, Sophie couldn't have left the eighth rose because she was out all night romancing the mark, and unless everyone was in on it, that only left you," she finished proudly. It had taken all her restraint to not immediately thank Eliot once she'd figured out who was behind the thoughtful gifts. They simply appeared, intended to lift her spirits, whenever she'd had a rough time, and he'd taken great effort to remain anonymous.

Eliot hugged her back gently, "You're welcome. Thought they'd make you smile, and then once I saw how much you loved them I couldn't bring myself to stop-" he was interrupted by her lips pressing against his and the corner of his mouth quirked up in a tiny grin. "Guess you really like them," he teased once she'd pulled back.

"Nope. Well, I do love them, but I kissed you because I really like _you_," Parker said, cheeks flushed pink. She'd succeeded in rendering Eliot speechless for a second as he mentally adjusted to that. "Sophie said there are words to this, so Eliot, will you be my boyfriend?" she asked.

"Sweetheart, I think she meant that the guy says… you know what? Never mind. I'd be honored to be your boyfriend, Parker." He pulled her in for another gentle kiss. Trust Parker to damn convention and do things in her own fashion, but he wouldn't have her any other way!


	10. Pearl

He kept a box, just a small one, of items which had followed him from broken marriage to car, to city after city, bar after bar, and finally to the apartment in Los Angeles which was slowly beginning to feel like home. This box didn't hold masterpieces or precious jewelry, but treasures of the heart. He had one of Sam's first drawings, the photograph taken of him and Maggie when Sam was born, photos of their happy life _before_, and a tiny little pearl.

That pearl, so incongruous under all the glossy paper, held a special place in his heart. He'd been fighting with Maggie after they lost Sam, both of them so lost that they might as well have been on separate continents rather than separate bedrooms, and he'd just decided to file for divorce when he came across the little white pearl in his drawer. Nate remembered exactly when it had been dislodged from its post.

He'd bought the pearl earrings for their fifth anniversary and thought that they looked perfect when Maggie wore them to dinner. After dinner, though, they'd both gotten a little exuberant; both sets of clothing had small tears where impatient hands had simply pulled rather than unstick a zipper or manipulate a tiny button, both bodies bore more than one bite mark the next day which lead to both sporting blushes when a twinge brought back memories, and this one little pearl had popped loose in all the chaos. When Maggie found it under their bed the next day, she'd proudly placed it on their dresser and dragged him upstairs for an encore.

Years later, when he found it in his drawer, Nate couldn't help but take it with him and treasure the memories they'd made. He had proof that once upon a time life had been perfect and happy, and he tried to keep faith that someday it would be happy again.


	11. Cat Burglar

Parker brazenly strolled into the facility, nodded to the front desk, and continued on to her target in the back. No alarms sounded and greetings were issued by everyone she came across. "Alice White" as people knew her here, was a very welcome face at the animal shelter and volunteered as regularly as the jobs allowed. She quickly opened the cat habitat's clear acrylic door and slipped through, careful not to let any of its inhabitants escape, and softly padded across the room to take her customary cross-legged seat in the center.

A pair of kittens scrambled across the floor to tussle while an older grey tabby, stately as any matriarch, settled in her lap. Parker swiped one of the shiny foil toys and teased the two kittens into chasing her hand while gently petting the tabby with her other hand. The cat burglar absolutely loved cats- they were silent, clean, graceful, and could get themselves into nearly anything. And, unlike dogs, no one ever used cats as guard animals.

The larger kitten snagged the toy out of her hand and ran off with his prize held high while the second kitten gave raucous chase. Parker freely laughed at their antics while other cats, now that the boisterous kittens were out of the way, gathered around for their fair share of petting. Mint, dubbed for his gold fur and green eyes, disdained petting in favor of swatting at the ends of her ponytail which Parker obligingly swished back and forth. Parker picked up the rotund tom, Butterscotch, and brought him up to her face. He calmly stared back, purring like a rusty outboard motor, and she lost the staring contest. She buried her face in his soft fur, inhaling the warm scent of cat, and held her ear close to hear his purring. Butterscotch patiently endured the manhandling, enjoying her fingers carding through his thick fur, until he decided that he'd been pampered enough and escaped to lie on one of the shelf beds lining the far wall where he could keep a supervisory eye on everything.

Parker ignored shy Bobcat creeping around the periphery to her left, not wanting to intimidate the shy bob tailed little cat, and let her edge closer in her own time. She'd been working with the striped cat for several weeks and Bobcat had come a long way from the feral and hostile feline she'd been when first introduced to the animal shelter. The shelter did their best to avoid killing any of the animals they looked after, but if a dog or cat proved to be a danger to humans, it had to be put down to avoid hurting anyone. Parker couldn't stand that and always worked with the wild cats; if anyone understood the value of a second chance, it was Parker, and she was determined to give each cat as much love and patience as it needed. None of them were vicious for the sake of being mean, but were terrified, hurt, and mistrusting.

Parker could relate as that's how she felt in the beginning too, before Nate, Sophie, Eliot, and Hardison worked their own patient magic to gentle her. Alice White was beloved by the shelter's staff because she could work miracles with their toughest felines, and as Bobcat timidly accepted a gentle scratching, Parker felt genuine happiness warm her heart. She wasn't a genius with people like Nate and Sophie, but she could, in her own way, help make lives better.


	12. Comfortable

"What the…?" Parker exclaimed, holding up the incomprehensible tangle of lace and silk. She and Eliot were staying the night on their mark's yacht, playing a married couple, and Sophie had packed Parker's suitcase so that everything matched with the well-heeled persona that Parker was portraying. She'd packed dresses, undergarments, enough shoes to sink the yacht, two bathing suits, even some fashionable leisure wear, and _this_.

Eliot turned from unpacking his own suitcase at hearing her dismayed exclamation and had to stifle a laugh. "You're holding it upside down," he explained and gently reversed the item in her hands. He had to quickly turn his back, ostensibly to continue unpacking his own suitcase, as her expression threatened to break his iron control. Laughing at her right now would only draw her ire to the closest target, and Eliot still had to sleep in the same bed with her tonight.

"I'm not wearing _that_ to bed!" Parker nearly yelled, panic and fury making her voice shrill. She saw Eliot's quick hand motion to lower her voice and obliged, remembering that they were still playing a part, but still held the offensive lingerie at arm's length. "Sophie knows that I don't wear this stuff, so why pack it?" She was still angry, but was now settling down from bright fury to a slow simmer. "I swear, when we get back, I'm going to fill all of her shoes with binary foam!" Parker's face began to clear at the soothing thoughts of revenge.

Eliot merely made a mental note to take a fishing trip far away for that week. Somewhere at least two states away, secluded, and with absolutely no cellular service so that he could avoid being caught up in Sophie's ensuing nuclear meltdown if Parker carried through with her threat. He continued on, sorting his toiletries, and listened to her grumbling behind him. "Then don't sleep in it, Parker!" he finally broke silence as he carried his handful of toiletries to their cabin's expansive bathroom. Eliot could do without the overdone mermaid theme, but appreciatively eyed the deep Jacuzzi tub. He'd try to sneak a long soaking in later if they had the time. The job wasn't supposed to wrap up for two more days yet, as he and Parker were still at sea with the flotilla of party yachts, but Murphy usually collided with them somewhere and turned all their careful planning upside down.

By the time Eliot emerged, Parker had spread the contents of her suitcase across the bed and stood frowning at the pile. "Sophie didn't give me anything else I can sleep in, unless I wanted to spend the night in this thing," she indicated a flouncy sundress. Eliot gave the bed's contents a once-over and had to agree. There were sleeveless silk blouses, knee-length shorts, dresses of all kinds, and more underthings than he wanted to see, but nothing that he could conscionably recommend Parker sleep in.

A quick thought crossed his mind. "Put all that away and let me check on something," he instructed as he turned to dig through the dresser on his side of the room. He'd been distracted by Parker's carrying on as he unpacked, but Eliot thought that he'd seen… yes, he did. He triumphantly turned around and held out the soft red undershirt that he'd remembered seeing tucked in a pile of shirts. It was supposed to go under his white linen button-down, but it could serve a far better purpose. "You can sleep in this, should be long enough on you to work as a nightshirt," Eliot explained as Parker grabbed the shirt and hugged it to her.

Parker quickly changed into the shirt and he was right, it hit her small frame at mid-thigh and was loose enough to comfortably sleep in. She whirled around and surprised Eliot with a quick, hard hug, then danced into the bathroom to finish readying herself for bed. Today had been a long day, entertaining their mark, keeping up her persona, and dealing with Sophie's execrable decision on sleepwear, and Parker was more than ready to curl up on the invitingly soft king size bed. Inside the privacy of the bathroom, she quickly sniffed the shirt- it still carried a hint of whatever spicy body wash he used, combined with his laundry detergent, and Parker loved it.

They traded places, Parker to get into bed and Eliot to use the bathroom, before it was lights out and time to get some much-needed sleep for them both. Neither were grifters and the constant acting, keeping on guard, taxed the mind and exhausted the body. Parker curled up on the edge of the mattress and fell asleep almost instantly. Eliot lay on his back and simply waited. Not ten minutes later, a sound-asleep Parker wormed her way across the mattress, across his body, and did her best to take up as much room as possible. The first time that they'd slept together, he'd nearly elbowed her in the temple before Eliot realized that she wasn't attacking him and wasn't even awake. Parker simply slept sprawled out like a starfish, across as much of the bed, and him, as she could. He patiently waited until she settled, leg tangled with his, arm across his waist, and nose shoved into the hollow of his throat, before curling his own arm across Parker's back. Eliot then allowed himself to join her in slumber, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth.


	13. Hope

**Note: did anyone notice Eliot and Parker's odd actions when they were sitting at the bar comparing what they all did for six months in the beginning of ****_The Beantown Bailout Job_****? Parker says she stole the Hope Diamond and put it back, Eliot gets an odd look on his face… Eliot says he was in Pakistan like he's only winding up Hardison, Parker stares at him before laughing a little… yeah, this is what they didn't reveal.**

"Eliot… Eliot… Eliot!" Parker's excited voice broke through his pretense of sleeping. In the three months that they'd been traveling together after the team agreed to break up, he'd never actually remained asleep after she got up. He tried not to focus on whether it was ingrained habit or self-preservation.

"What, Parker?" Eliot growled in exasperation, allowing one eye to crack open, which was the only thing that saved him from being whacked across the face by the harness Parker threw. "Hey, don't throw things!" He'd let Parker travel with him, partially because he knew how bereft she felt alone after having the team's support, and partially because he didn't trust turning her loose in the world without supervision. Damn woman was more magpie than human! Eliot picked up the harness and looked at Parker in question.

She didn't even bother to look startled at his yell, and simply began bouncing on the other bed. "I'm bored, we're in Maryland, and I thought of the perfect thing to do- steal the Hope Diamond!" Slight chocolate smears on her fingers and face provided the culprit for her hyperactivity and Eliot had to count to ten before opening his mouth.

"We're laying low, Parker, not shining a spotlight by staging a heist!" he closed his eyes and rubbed at his temple in a forlorn attempt at soothing the headache that was starting. He liked her, he really did, but sometimes he wished she'd just _stop_ for five minutes. A little common sense wouldn't go awry either, but Parker was anything but common and he didn't hold out hope. Eliot opened his eyes to see her pout and promptly closed them again. Sophie had taught her well.

Parker stifled her snicker; she was getting to him and she knew it. Even though he knew full well that she was faking he'd eventually cave if she kept it up long enough. "But it's on my top five list, and they haven't upgraded security in two years. Plus I heard from my sources that they're going to be mounting it in a new setting soon, which means this is my chance to lift the loose stone," she explained and made sure to keep any hint of a whine out of her voice. Whining only irritated Eliot, and she didn't want that.

"Really, with the lip and the eyes and all?" Two seconds later… "Fine! But you put it right back, immediately." He was nearly bowled over when Parker gave him a flying tackle only pretending to be a hug and patted her back in amused resignation. "Yeah, yeah. Let me up so I can get dressed, and Parker- I ain't wearing that harness. If you want to dangle in the air like Tinkerbelle you're welcome to it, but I'll go in on foot."

Parker danced and twirled around their hotel room while he quickly changed into clean clothes. Parker took care of packing their meager belongings, both traveling light. A quick stop in the bathroom to take care of necessities and he was ready to be dragged out of the door to the car. They made it to DC in a very short time, given that Parker had awakened him before dawn, and they had their choice of parking.

Eliot got out of the car and stretched before his hand was grabbed by the enthusiastic thief. "I want to get breakfast," Parker explained why she was pulling him in the opposite direction from the Smithsonian, "that way we can spend all day on recon and break in tonight!" Eliot simply went along with her and did his best to enjoy a full breakfast while stopping Parker from getting chocolate chips added to her pancakes. The little diner, and Eliot's sanity, just wouldn't survive if she had two chocolate fixes within a few hours. They ate leisurely to waste enough time for the museum to open and made sure to tip moderately more out of habit than any desire to avoid being remembered.

The two strolled arm in arm through the Natural History Museum, observing security under the guise of a young couple admiring the exhibits. Parker found four tiny blind spots in the camera angles which she could exploit, plus the enticingly unsecured ventilation system. Eliot spotted ten visible guards and estimated that there could be as many as another ten hidden. At night there would be fewer guards, but the majority of them would be moving and harder to track without their hacker.

After thoroughly enjoying the museum, both the exhibits and the potential job, Eliot and Parker checked into the nearest hotel under one of Eliot's older identities. Doctor and Missus Abernathy were warmly welcomed by the hotel staff and requested that the day's special be sent up from the kitchen. They'd eat and then nap a bit to prepare for their work that night.

Parker ate Eliot's serving of candied beets off his plate, and he got her side salad, though they both enjoyed their own grilled chicken. He did have to nix her idea of ordering chocolate cake for dessert… several times, and finally had to resort to unplugging the room's phone to keep her from calling down to the kitchen. Parker gave up after losing a tussle for the phone base and resigned herself to vacationing with a chocolate-Nazi.

Both changed for bed and curled up for a day's sleep as they wouldn't head over to the museum until after midnight. "Good night Eliot, sleep tight, and dream of _diamonds_!" Parker called across.

"Good night Parker, go to sleep!" he called back and didn't hide a small laugh at her enthusiasm. Eliot forced himself to shut down and drop off to sleep immediately, a trick he'd learned in basic training and refined in an Angolan warlord's jail.

Eight hours later they roused, showered, and refined their plan of entry. Given that the diamond was located on the second floor with no direct street access, they planned for Parker to enter through the ventilation system and then let Eliot in via an access door. With her little custom-built gadget they could spoof the security system long enough to gain entry. It wasn't Hardison-level hacking, but Parker had been doing this for nearly fifteen years without a hacker's assistance and was perfectly capable on her own. Eliot going along was her insurance against any security guards showing up, plus it was far more fun to drag him along than it was to go alone.

There were enough challenges to make this job enjoyable. The case was isolated in the middle of its secure room with nothing exposed for her to hook onto. Three inches of security 'glass' stood between her and the diamond, and it was rigged to descend into its safe when the security system detected danger. Parker brought every tool she'd rescued from their offices, from binary cutting agent to explosives, just in case. She'd learned well from the team's jobs that anything can happen, and it was better to be prepared than caught without.

In the end, though, she hadn't needed much. She'd entered through the ventilation system as planned and let Eliot in through a maintenance door in the roof, also as planned. Together they ghosted through the darkened museum and easily bypassed the two walking guards on rotation. It was only when they were considering the best plan of attack on the display case that Eliot stopped her. They couldn't do too much damage, otherwise there would be a giant ruckus about the break-in, and he had a better idea.

"Of course I got the security system," Parker whispered, baffled that he'd asked about something so basic. Eliot simply smirked and reached out to knock on the case; the unexpected vibrations set off the stone's security and dropped it neatly into its safe in less than a second. Thanks to Parker's handheld gizmo, no alarms sounded and the cameras for the room were still playing a thirty second loop of an empty room.

Parker grinned wide enough to show teeth. Explosives were wonderful, but she never felt more satisfied than she did when cracking a safe. They cracked the base of the display and Parker set to work with a happy little wriggle while Eliot ranged around the room to keep a lookout. They had ten minutes until they had to worry about the next patrol, but laziness had gotten many a thief caught in the act. She settled down to get better acquainted with the bold little safe, sitting so prettily in its stand. It was guaranteed against heat, freezing, shock, impact… anything but Parker. There was a reason why she was the best, and she had it opened in a hair under four minutes.

Eliot reappeared by her shoulder as she stood, diamond clutched to her chest, and helped to close the base and put everything back the way they'd found it. Now Parker's puckish came out to play, and she darted off down the hallway to the other side of the building. Eliot's soft curse floated to her ears as he followed at a much slower pace, keeping watch for any unexpected guards. By the time he caught up with her, she was fiddling with a case in the visiting Dynasties of Egypt exhibit. "Parker, you better hurry up, we got three minutes before the guards come back!" Eliot advised from his vantage point to one side of the doorway. Crazy woman couldn't just put it back in the safe where she grabbed it, no; she had to artistically arrange it on… "Dam- Parker, quit poking the mummy and let's get outta here!" he whispered forcefully. Time was ticking past and he wanted to get out without any conflicts.

"Done!" Parker whispered as she suddenly popped up by his shoulder. A quick glance back showed the Hope Diamond delicately balanced on the wrapped chest of the mummy on display. Given that the placard declared him to have been from one of the royal families, Eliot figured that he'd feel right at home with the two-hundred and fifty million dollar gem.

The two thieves again evaded the patrolling guards and exited via the door Eliot entered through. A couple of quick minutes spent working their way down the side of the building and they were racing away, Parker laughing like a loon and even Eliot sported a smile. It wasn't exactly a job but it still felt good to exercise their skills, and they both dearly wished that they could see all the chaos when their activities were discovered. "I pick the next target," Eliot called dibs on the next job. He couldn't leave her on her own, but that didn't mean that he couldn't have fun too!


	14. Toothbrush

Nate had a problem. Scratch that, he had an irritant that was fast approaching problem status. Roughly once a week his toothbrush, of all things, mysteriously disappeared from its cup on his bathroom sink, never to return. It was getting to where he picked up a handful of toothbrushes at the store now just to have extras in reserve! He'd watched his team like a hawk, tracking where each of them meandered in his loft, and hadn't seen them put so much as a toe on the spiral stairs.

Week after week, month after month, the theft continued. Never more than once a week thankfully, or he'd have gone insane, but incessant. He'd tried to imagine what Eliot could be using them for, if he was the thief, and only succeeded in making himself very twitchy around the hitter for several days after- some things were better left unimagined. Parker, he imagined could be using them to clean her stash of gems, well, either that or hoarding a truly impressive collection. Nate had terrifying visions of armies of makeshift robots running through his imagination when he considered what Hardison could be using toothbrushes to make and quickly redirected his thoughts.

Sophie, now she was one who he trusted to be the most normal of the group. She didn't have any odd habits or horrifying behaviors, and that's mostly why he always allowed her to use… Nate stopped his train of thought right there. He always let Sophie use his bathroom rather than the general one downstairs; she was disgusted by the state the other three 'kids' left it in and so Nate offered his. What possible reason could Sophie have for stealing his toothbrushes? His shirts, he could see, because she'd lifted several already when she felt too lazy to go change, but used toothbrushes? Only one thing to do- ask!

Sophie blushed a little bit when he finally cornered her alone in his apartment, "They make fabulous brushes to clean my heels," she explained, "They're just the perfect size to get into all the crannies and you buy the softest ones on the market, they don't scratch the finish. I meant to replace them, but then it became a little bit of a game when I noticed you laying out traps. Just couldn't resist." She held up one of her unbelievably high heels as explanation and sure enough, there was a bit of mud from Boston's slushy winter caked between the sole and upper.

He couldn't really deny her anything, never could, and gave in as gracefully as he could. "Fine, just not _every_ week if you could?" Nate received a lingering kiss on the cheek for his permission, and a smiling Sophie ascended to abscond with yet another toothbrush of his. Thinking on the bright side, at least he didn't have visions of robots, weapons, or hoarding dancing through his head anymore! Given his team, though, they were sure to come up with other ways to terrorize him.


	15. Opera

Utilizing several website backdoors, Hardison cruised through everything happening in Los Angeles. The city was wonderful- art, music, clubs, performing troupes, fundraisers, parties, concerts, operas… so many gatherings that he needed to keep abreast of just in case the team needed to steal an event. He quickly sat upright as he caught sight of the notice: the LA Opera was hosting Bizet's _Carmen_ in three days. Hardison hadn't noticed the announcement earlier as they'd all been in Juan and he didn't have the time to do his usual browsing.

"Oh, _Carmen_- a most romantic love story!" Sophie's voice enthused from just over his shoulder and Hardison startled, knocking his keyboard to the floor in the process. She barely seemed to notice as her eyes were still fixed on the conference room's screens. "Did you know that Nate abhors opera? I got him to go once in Sydney only because he was tailing me and my mark, but even from our balcony I could see that he'd dozed off within ten minutes," she mourned.

Hardison perked up at her tone of voice; he could have a fellow opera enthusiast on the team. "I was just about to acquire a ticket for myself, would you want to come with?" he asked, and saw her face light up with delight. He went ahead and booked two tickets, specifying the seats he wanted, and actually paid for them. Hardison would happily spend his own money to support opera, and this was one of the best.

Sophie lounged in the seat next to him, cradling her cup of tea. "I love the story line; the whirlwind romance between Carmen and Don Jose, the grand marriage, the inevitable fallout, and her murder," she reminisced with a smile gracing her lips. She'd borrowed parts of the opera for various cons in the past and the classics always worked so beautifully.

"Hey, looks like they're planning on doing _The Marriage of Figaro_ next month," Hardison said as he wormed through the theater's computer system. If he could plant a few scripts then they'd automatically alert him any time there was a change made to the theater's schedule. The two thieves continued chattering for hours, thrilled to have found a fellow opera enthusiast, and made plans to attend as often as the jobs allowed.


	16. Nature

**Note: follows previous ficlet titled _Hope_. This is Eliot's choice of adventure, and yes- there _is_ a place where you can do this in the Smoky Mountains (or at least there was at the time of this writing).  
**

* * *

Eliot had Parker's attention span timed down to the second, mostly due to being cooped up with her for the past four months in various hotel rooms. They'd played tourist at various attractions and he'd had to talk Parker out of stealing the Declaration of Independence while they toured DC. No news reports were made of their shenanigans in the Smithsonian, but their contacts reported that two curators fainted, six guards were fired, and all information of the break-in had been suppressed. Parker had laughed hard enough to end up sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around aching ribs, when she heard how much chaos they'd caused and that the museum still had no idea how they'd done it. Eliot had even had a quiet chuckle over it.

That was weeks ago, though, and Parker's restlessness was beginning to irritate. He'd brought her a load of locks, including a few prototypes a friend was paying him to test, and that only occupied her for sixty-three whole minutes before she was back to checking the room for clever hiding spots. She hadn't found hidden treasure in any of the eight hotels they'd stayed in, but that never discouraged her from trying. They were now in the Smoky Mountains, sure that any of Sterling's trackers wouldn't think to look for them in the small cities scattered throughout, and Eliot had an idea. He remembered that an old buddy of his had a small business not too far away that would be right up Parker's alley.

"Hey, come on. I got somethin' we can do today," he chivvied Parker out the door and completely ignored her incessant questioning, though her guess that they were heading out to blow up a train did draw a look of disbelief. "We're not blowing anything up, Parker," he tiredly repeated the same refrain he'd said an uncountable number of times in four months, and went back to doing his best to ignore her prattle. By now she'd figured out that he wasn't going to answer and had moved on to just chattering about what sights she could see.

A little less than an hour's drive, they pulled into a small airfield and Eliot gestured at the view of a sleek airplane and cinderblock building through the windshield. "Here's what we're gonna do today," he stated and then escaped the car before she could begin questioning again. Parker caught him up before he'd made it three feet from the car and happily bounced along beside him as they walked to the small building.

"Well now, Eliot, who's this beauty?" called across the field and stopped them cold. Eliot turned with a grin to face the gaunt man rounding the plane's nose as Parker backed behind Eliot. The guy seemed harmless, wiping his hands on a red rag, but she'd seen Eliot seem just as harmless before flooring the mark's goons in seconds and Parker didn't trust appearances.

Eliot walked forward to meet the man and they shared what Parker thought of as a 'man hug', brief squeeze and lots of back-slapping, before beckoning Parker over to introduce them. She learned that they had served together back when Eliot was military, and then had done jobs together for a while after, and that was why there were at the little airfield. Mike, as Eliot introduced him, apparently ran a skydiving business and was perfectly willing to take them up. Once Parker heard that she'd get to jump out of an airplane and free-fall, she squealed with joy and jumped onto Eliot, squeezing him as hard as she could in a hug.

Eliot had barely a second's warning to keep his balance and he automatically wrapped his arms around her to steady them both. He couldn't help the small smile that appeared at her joy, though it was fairly smothered by her hair in his face. When she kept hanging on well past a normal hug, Eliot gently patted her back. "If you don't let go, we can't skydive," he whispered in her ear and watched with amusement as she abruptly released him to stand on her own, bouncing in place like a demented Tigger, a massive grin of delight plastered across her face.

They all went to get ready, Mike to prep the plane and Eliot and Parker to grab the necessary gear. Eliot explained that he still held an instructor's license and that she would be attached to the front of his harness for safety. Parker considered arguing and demanding that she get to jump alone, but a year's experience with Eliot had taught her that he took safety very seriously and would simply turn around and leave. She quickly agreed and wriggled her way into the harness that wasn't nearly as comfortable as her own custom rig. Then she stood fidgeting impatiently as Eliot checked the fit, only to immediately freeze as he gave her a _look_.

They joined Mike in the plane and were in the air within minutes. Parker kept her face plastered against the window; she'd flown more times than she could count, but the view from so high up always fascinated her. Eliot eventually leaned over her shoulder to whisper, breath tickling her ear and sending shivers down her spine, that it was time for them to jump. He narrowly avoided a head-butt as Parker whipped her head around to stare at him from less than two inches away, eyes crinkled with her joyous smile. Eliot stood and couldn't help but reach for her hand to help her as they made their way to the back hatch.

Once clipped together, Parker's back pressed to Eliot's chest, he wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug and they waited for Mike's all-clear. "Okay you two, the weather service reports a storm moving in, but you have enough time to jump," came over the speaker system, and Eliot prompted Parker to reach out and hit the hatch's release. When it opened, it set off an alarm in the cockpit, and Mike called back, "Good luck, and go!"

Eliot and Parker leapt out into the sky, Parker's ecstatic whoops easily heard over the wind in their ears. To give her a bit of an extra thrill that she couldn't get by jumping off a building, he easily twisted them so that they'd go flipping end over end before he held their arms open to slow their fall. In this position, they could enjoy the view, and he could see Parker's head turning to take it all in. All too soon it was time to pull his parachute release. "Tuck up, like I showed you earlier," he shouted to Parker and prepared himself for the abrupt deceleration.

Parachute open, he glanced up to make that none of the lines tangled, and began trying to control their glide. The wind that they hadn't noticed much in free-fall was throwing them around as the storm system moved in faster than Mike's report had indicated. They were being pushed to the west of their planned landing zone, right into the forest, and Eliot wasn't looking forward to landing. "We're being blown into the trees!" he had to shout into Parker's ear to be heard over the wind noise. "When we get close, pull up your legs to cushion if you hit any branches, and cross your arms over your chest. I'll try to keep the worst of it off you," Eliot promised. Last time he landed in trees was zero dark thirty in a Peruvian jungle, and it hadn't gone well. Hell, his forearm still ached when it snowed.

The next several minutes were a blur of color, sound, and pain as they crash landed. By the time Eliot shook the cobwebs from his head, Parker was beginning to stir, and from their swaying it was immediately apparent that they were dangling. "Can you see the ground?" he asked as, from the angle their harnesses were holding them, he could only see the back of her helmet.

Parker looked down and nearly groaned as her neck protested the movement. "Yep, I see the ground, all two feet away," she answered.

"I'm gonna release your harness and lower you down," Eliot explained as he got a handhold on the back of her harness and unclipped them. Her weight wasn't difficult to handle as he gently lowered her the reported two feet and waited for her to steady her shaky legs. "You okay?" he asked in concern.

Parker checked herself as she did after every fall- arms, legs, joints, and fingers… everything hurt but was sound. "Yeah, just bruised and strained," she reported back and heard the sudden thud as Eliot released his harness from the parachute. Parker turned to steady him, then backed off to let him assess his own condition.

Eliot quickly discerned that he was likewise just bruised, not broken, and had picked up a graze on his cheek presumably from some part of the tree they'd crashed through. "Same here," he reassured her and turned to look for the sun. If he could get a direction, then he'd know which direction they needed to go. By his reckoning they were a few miles west of their exit, but he hadn't had the time to fully concentrate on direction when he was trying to keep them both from being impaled or severely maimed in landing.

Not willing to admit to needing reassurance, Parker sidled up to Eliot's side and leaned into his shoulder. She'd walked off hard falls before, even ones from a significant height, but she'd never fallen out of the sky before. Eliot's arm disappeared only to come back around her waist, pulling her in for a hug. "Hey sweetheart, we made it down in one piece," he gently tightened his hug, "and now all we have left is a walk in this beautiful National Park." Parker lifted her face from where she'd tucked it against his neck and gave him a piercing look. Eliot met her eyes calmly only to be shocked when she leaned in to brush a gentle kiss on the corner of his mouth.

"I don't care about the park," she said as she pulled back to properly see him, "when I care more about you." Parker had never been one for shy hinting, never saw the point in it, and wasn't about to play coy with Eliot. She'd watched him these months together and liked what she saw- a good man with a very kind heart.

Sudden pouring rain broke Eliot out of his shock and he frowned at the thought of hiking in waterlogged clothing. "Come on, let's get under cover until this passes," he urged Parker to motion and they both sprinted to the shelter of a nearby pine tree. Its drooping lower branches should act as an umbrella and keep the worst of the water off of them. Eliot dodged under, expecting Parker to follow, and turned around in confusion when she didn't join him.

Parker loved rain storms. Even as a child, she could retreat out into the rain and be sure that no one would follow, and that hadn't changed as she grew up. She spread her arms wide and turned her face to the onslaught, laughing as it dripped through her hair and ran into her ears. Rain was so cleansing, soothing. Parker closed her eyes and jumped and twirled in the rain, danced with it, until she ran into a solid chest. "Eliot! Dance with me!" she laughed and tried to lead him into a tango.

Eliot quickly repositioned their hands to bring her snugly into his body and captured her rain-chilled lips in a warming kiss. He lead her in a brief dance which brought them right under the pine tree and held her back when she wanted to go out into the rain again. "No need to get too chilled," he cautioned, survivalist in him protesting loudly at their already soaked state. You stayed alive by keeping warm and dry, not by dancing in the rain.

She looked longingly at the rain just outside of the branches before Parker signed and gave in. She was feeling the chill more than she'd let on and had to agree with him; besides, if she stayed under the tree she could kiss Eliot rather than being out in the rain alone.

Mentally smirking as he guessed her line of thought, Eliot cuddled her into his chest as he settled back against the tree's trunk. He couldn't resist dropping a kiss to her temple where a streak of water left a wet trail. Parker settled more firmly against him and tipped her head back to receive a proper kiss, which he happily obliged. Even with their terrifying landing, today was turning out to be a very good day, and who needed nature's beauty when he had a blonde thief to gaze at? They'd eventually get around to hiking back out of the park… eventually.


	17. Off Hours

Sophie adored her collection of clothing and shoes, all three of her extra bedrooms had been converted into spacious closets, and loved nothing more than to feel the glide of soft cashmere or silk across her skin. Stretch pants worshipped her derriere, she had quite the collection of them, and nothing could compete with her lingerie collection. She had a friend in the business who made the most delightful one-of-a-kind creations for her out of silk and lace. Those creations never failed to catch a mark's eye, though she often felt like she needed a decontamination shower after being leered at.

She never failed to appear at their office with an outfit completely put together, with hair and makeup, which was more than she could say for Parker or Hardison. Those two always looked like they'd just fallen out of bed, and Eliot tended to favor those shapeless plaid shirts. Even when she got him into a tuxedo he changed back into his street clothes at the earliest opportunity- sacrilege to cover up a body like that! Nate, at least, dressed like a gentleman most of the time and she appreciated the effort he made.

What she never allowed the others to see though, her guilty pleasure in life, were the moments where she could just go home and relax. Off came the sexy heels, the fine linen suit, and the custom lingerie. She scrubbed her face free from all her makeup and tied her hair back in a simple ponytail. In her off hours, Sophie only wanted to crawl into an old pair of track pants and an overly-large men's tee that had been laundered enough times to be incredibly soft. She got to pad around her uptown LA flat barefoot and simply luxuriate in being alone, not having to keep up an appearance.


	18. Heat

Parker didn't care for hospitals- the cold and stink of them. Ending up in one always meant that she hadn't been good enough and that something had gone wrong, leaving her trussed up and slowed down by casts and broken bones. The places always gave her the shivers and the thin gown leaving her half-exposed certainly didn't help! So she was extremely grateful to Eliot and Hardison for letting her hop up to sit between them, not touching but still close enough that she could feel their body heat soak into her arms and legs.

Sure, Nate's idiocy had her abandoning her cozy post to run out and… well, she didn't know if she wanted to scream or throttle him, but Eliot had dragged her back before she could decide. His arm left a warm trail along her stomach from where he'd grabbed her, body a virtual furnace behind hers, and she couldn't help but shiver a little when he let go and stepped back. Parker did her best to hide how cold she was, inside and out, from the hospital but something gave her away to her two friends. Before she knew it, Hardison's jacket was draped over her shoulders and she was seated back on the machine's bed.

Hardison and Eliot sat next to her again, but this time pressed close enough to be solid lines of warmth down both her sides; Hardison's arm draped gently over her shoulders while Eliot's arm snaked around her waist so that they could keep her close. Neither spoke to coordinate, maintaining comm silence to give her a bit of privacy from Nate and Sophie, but she ended up warmed from their shared body heat on the outside as her soul warmed from the gentle concern. Parker hadn't had friends before this year, preferring to work solo or with temporary and often undependable associates, but she could certainly get used to this feeling!

* * *

**Note: not written specifically to be H/P/E, but you can always read it to be as shippy as your little heart desires :)**


	19. Locks

Nate didn't know how much more plain he could make himself- he didn't want them in his apartment! He told them to get out, and they didn't; he told them he wanted their stuff gone, and they brought _more_; he told them to XXX, and Hardison bought the damned building. Finally, he tried something that an ex before Maggie had done- changed the locks. He did forget who he was dealing with, though.

The first time that he changed the locks, the team did show a little respect by knocking when they couldn't open the door and he promptly allowed them in. The next morning he came downstairs to find Eliot sprawled out on the couch, feet up on his coffee table, and sports channels playing on Hardison's TVs. Nate knew that he'd locked every single door to the apartment, "How did you get in here?" he asked in exasperation. Eliot simply gave him an amused look, as if the answer was glaringly obvious, and went back to watching the games. Nate grumbled as the others slowly trickled in, but knew that he'd lost that particular round.

One week later he changed the locks for the second time. That night he was woken a little after three a.m. by what sounded like silverware clinking on a plate or bowl and Nate snuck downstairs to investigate. Parker had let herself in and had set up a place at the counter, cereal in a bowl in front of her and what looked like safe spec sheets orderly arranged within arm's reach. "Parker," he sighed and rubbed his eyes. She looked up from a handful of papers, the picture of attentive innocence. "Why are yo… never mind," Nate gave up that line of thought before it started. Three a.m. was too early to listen to Parker lead him down the rabbit hole of her reasoning process. He went back to bed and left her to carry on. She wouldn't set anything on fire… he hoped.

Three weeks after that he'd had his fill of their constant invasions, eating his food without replacing it and leaving _unbelievable_ messes behind, and so he changed his locks again. This time he'd called in a favor with a buddy of his who supplied him with bolts that were supposed to be completely invulnerable to picking or jimmying. Those locks only lasted two days before Sophie walked into the upstairs bathroom while he was showering, her sudden appearance nearly startling him into doing himself a permanent injury in the shower's close confines and completely distracting him from her explanation of what she was looking for in his cabinets. She waltzed out of the bathroom and he tried to get his heart back down out of his throat.

Nate spent a small fortune in locks and went through ten different sets trying to keep his team out of his apartment before he just gave up and admitted defeat. He'd been rather foolish to forget that his team was made up of thieves at the very top of their fields. To them, a lock represented an irresistible challenge, a siren's call to go where they weren't invited, and all three had made a game of it. Hardison was the only one who abstained but admitted, when Nate later asked, that he'd had an unfair advantage as Nate's landlord. Instead, whoever broke in first always kept him supplied with a copy of the key 'in case of emergency' and as proof to collect on their running bet for each lock. Nate simply threw his head back on the couch and laughed.


	20. Dentist

**For Brina- a good friend who could use an Eliot for comfort on her own trip to the dreaded dentist, and a wonderful sounding-board (though one who keeps rooting for more Parker/Eliot romance lol). Thanks for letting me whine to you about plot, the 'why', and the 'how'!  
**

* * *

"No, Parker, you're going to the dentist," Nate stated emphatically, more than exasperated with the circular argument he'd been having with his thief. He turned and ensconced himself in his office, firmly shutting the door in Parker's face. If Hardison said that their identities needed to use their company insurance to keep up electronic appearances, then they'd _all_ use their insurance, no matter how many excuses Parker gave him.

_Two weeks later…_

Parker uneasily paced through their offices. Her dreaded appointment with the dentist was today, and she just couldn't shake the sick feeling of fear that had settled in her belly. Making herself helpless wasn't something that she ever wanted to do, and sitting in a chair while strangers crowded around and poked inside her mouth certainly qualified as helpless! Inspiration struck as she caught sight of Hardison in the kitchen. "Hardison," she popped up behind him and watched as he startled at her sudden appearance. He yelped and jumped, dropping all the snacks he'd piled into his arms as he spun to face her. "What are you doing today?" Parker asked while he tried to collect himself.

"I got a game going in twenty minutes with my guild, and we're _so_ going to… Parker?" Hardison called down the hallway as she turned and walked off. He shrugged off her idiosyncrasy and scrambled to collect the bags of chips and cookies which had scattered across the tile floor. Now he only had fifteen minutes to set up his command center- snacks, drinks, and taking over the conference room's setup.

Parker couldn't bring herself to take him away from his game. He'd abandon his plans if she asked, but she'd be nervous enough without adding a disappointed or impatient Hardison to the mix. She nearly ran down Sophie when they both turned around the same corner, and jumped back. "Sophie! Do you have plans for today?" Parker blurted out, handing back the compact she'd inadvertently palmed from Sophie's hands at their impact.

"Oh, there's a lovely rendition of Shakespeare's _Macbeth_ showing at the theatre, and though Gillian Stinnett can't possibly do justice to Lady Macbeth, I just can't wait to see it!" Sophie enthused. She finished touching up her makeup and brushed lightly past Parker on her way to the building's elevators, her light perfume following in her wake. Parker's nose twitched, the only sign that she was mildly annoyed at being brushed off, but Sophie never looked back to see it.

Parker finished rounding the corner and marched straight for Nate's office. If he ordered her to submit for a round of torture then he deserved to be dragged in with her! Her grand plan was knocked out of orbit when she opened his door- Nate was draped across his office's couch, snoring, with an empty bottle dropped on the floor under his outflung hand. Parker nearly crossed the office to deliver a vengeful kick, but Nate wasn't a nice drunk and she didn't need to deal with him on top of her anxiety. Instead, she closed the office door and slowly walked to the elevators in their lobby.

Could she cancel the appointment and claim that there was an earthquake? Or, better yet, start a fire in the office and just 'forget' in all the chaos… she was halfheartedly looking around for incendiary material when Eliot's voice drifted from his office.

"What's wrong, Parker?" Eliot had seen her near dash down the hallway, heard her collision with Sophie, and then Nate's door opened and closed. Then came Parker's dragging footsteps back up the hallway. It was odd enough to catch his fine-tuned senses and he wanted to figure out what had her all wound up. He put down the book he'd been reading as her head poked around the partially-closed door.

Parker simply stood in the doorway and watched Eliot as he watched her. A few seconds passed before her resolve broke. "I was just seeing if anyone was free today, but you're all busy, so never mind," she spoke rapidly and attempted to back out into the hall. Eliot's gesture for her to come into the office had her hesitantly taking a few steps in rather than escaping.

Those few steps were as much as he was going to get, Eliot knew, and so he simply asked, "Why?" Parker sighed and a very wary look ghosted across her face before it went completely blank. He could tell that she was wound up by the set of her shoulders and stillness in her hands; all identifiers of a person ready to make a fast escape. His life, and theirs now, depended on his being able to read a person's body language and Parker's body screamed of fear.

"Nate's making me go to the dentist," Parker said, then elaborated when Eliot simply gave her a look, "I've only been once, and it was a nightmare, and I wanted someone to go with me so that they wouldn't hurt me." She crossed her arms across her chest, half in self-comfort and half in burgeoning irritation. Only Eliot could get a real answer out of her, whereas Nate and Hardison usually got whatever crazy answer crossed her mind, and she didn't know how he did it.

Eliot sat for a moment, simply observing Parker and parsing her explanation. Even when she gave a seemingly-simple answer there were often hidden meanings, but this one seemed just as straight forward as it sounded. "Okay," he slowly answered, still considering his offer, "if you promise not to stab the dentist or hygienist, then I'll go with you and watch your back."

Parker blinked in surprise at his offer. She hadn't even considered asking Eliot for help because she honestly didn't think that he'd be willing. He rarely socialized with them between jobs and tried to retain a professional distance when they had to work together. Yet he'd offered to be trapped in an exam room with her, to give up his rare free day, and all without her asking. She'd get her own private hitter to look after her, and no dentist could ever get the jump on Eliot! Parker relaxed a bit and flashed him a small smile of gratitude. She couldn't help but still be nervous, but having him along would certainly make her feel safe enough to endure the torture.


	21. Age of the Geek

21 January, just an ordinary day to the others, but to Hardison it was a milestone. Today was not only his twenty-third birthday it was also eighteen years to the day when the social worker dropped him off with the woman who would become his Nana. That old woman defied every stereotype in existence. When Alec was eight, the local gangs had been recruiting rather heavily and had been pressuring him to join, attracted by his way with numbers and disdain for authority. When she'd found out about it, Nana had sat him down and given him one of the strangest talks of his young life.

"Alec," she'd said, "you're too smart to go running with that kind. They'll use you up and leave you bleeding in the streets. I know you ain't got a love for the law, and after what it put you through I don't blame you, but being a thug with a gun ain't you. I'll make you a deal, young man: do what you will long as it don't hurt nobody and I'll look after you, but hurt or kill someone and I'll put you in the ground. You understand me, Alec Hardison?"

That was the first time that he got even so much as a hint that his Nana was more than a little old lady. Little things popped up over the years, like how she managed to find the right tutor for him in electronics and how she overlooked where the money came from when the house needed repairs. His Nana knew the basics of what he was learning from his tutor, if not the full details, and gave implicit approval with her silence. When she was in the hospital that last time, he'd tried to ask just how she knew where to hire a world-class hacker as his tutor, but she'd only smiled and said that one meets all kinds in the world if one keeps an open mind.

Even now Hardison couldn't find any background on the woman who had become his family, only a few records going back four years before he was dropped on her doorstep that January afternoon. She just appeared and the system kept on going. For whatever reason, she'd seen that a lawful life just wasn't in him and had done her best to keep him from being turned into a neighborhood thug. Every year since she passed, Hardison kept up his tradition and hacked the Bank of Iceland. Their attempts to block and track his yearly theft were adorable, really, and usually left him laughing for hours afterward even as he scrubbed the stolen money through eight shell companies before he donated it to Sisters of Mercy Hospital. He had his yearly fun, and the hospital which saved his Nana's life enjoyed his thanks, so everyone benefitted. In a day or two he'd get a birthday card from his Nana, and he _still_ couldn't figure out how she found the unpublished amount that he'd stolen (as the Bank never released that information, being too ashamed that he'd broken in yet another year), but she'd code it right in with her best wishes. Yeah, his Nana rocked- age of the geek, indeed!


	22. Rain

Eliot liked rain- a strong downpour created enough noise that his targets never heard his nearly silent footfalls behind them, it washed the blood off his skin and clothes once he was done, and it erased the signs that he'd ever been there in the first place. Even now that he'd left that part of him behind, he still liked a good rain. He would sit on the roof of their LA offices and listen to the patter it made as it struck the tarred roof. The ever-present heat of the city slowly loosed its hold in the face of the cool deluge. It brought a release of tension that he rarely experienced as it matted his hair down and dripped cool streams down his spine, having soaked through his shirts in little time.

A strong enough downpour in Boston allowed him to relax back against the roof access door and close his eyes; no sniper in the world could make a decent shot through that much falling water and he could afford to drop his guard for a few precious minutes, to simply _be_.

A good rain also kept Parker off her rigging as wet lines were often unpredictable and that was also one less worry he had to carry. Of course that meant that he had to watch his wallet lest her bored light hands make off with it. No matter, the wallets usually showed back up later, hidden in his desk drawer or tucked in his offside back pocket. First time that one had happened, Eliot had nearly hit the roof until he realized that, good as she was, she only got that close without his noticing because he'd come to trust the little thief. After that he accepted her game in the spirit that it was meant.

Hardison also refused to venture out in the rain, rather like an indignant cat, and usually amused himself by tinkering around with electronic parts in the office. After being tricked into "helping" him test a few of the devices, Eliot made sure that he wasn't easily at hand to be found. Helping was one thing, but being trapped with the man for hours as he babbled some incomprehensible gibberish was torture. He did, however, manage to maneuver Nate into Hardison's line of fire most of the time. The mastermind loved to yank them around on jobs, and Eliot would take payback wherever he could.

Sophie rarely graced them with her presence on those dreary wet days, preferring instead to remain in whatever safe haven she'd found (likely with a mark, to keep her skills polished) and keep her hair out of the damp. On the few occasions when she did come in, she'd immediately drag Nate away from his online chess or rescue him from Hardison and they'd head upstairs to Nate's private rooms. Eliot truly didn't want to imagine what they got up to!

With everyone safely tucked away in the building, and a curtain of obscuring rain falling, Eliot closed his eyes and lifted his face to the heavens. He was soaked to the skin within seconds but couldn't be more content.


	23. Kids

He had to wonder- is this how normal families felt? Nate didn't know much about 'normal', given his failed marriage and life so far, but he imagined that it must be close as he watched the three youngest thieves bicker on the couch.

Eliot was the eldest of the three and tried to maintain his distance, but the other two inevitably dragged him into their fracas. He'd snap and snarl irritably but wouldn't dream of actually hurting them. Sadly for him, the two youngest knew that and made the most of winding him up; Nate often cringed at how far they pushed the man that they _knew_ could easily kill them, but Eliot always restrained his temper and the other two always stopped short of inciting actual chaos.

Parker was somewhere between Eliot and Hardison in age, though closer to Hardison in actual years even if she didn't know exactly how many herself. She had confided to Nate one night that her birthday of February 15th was a fabrication in honor of the Antwerp diamond heist and that she had no idea what her real date of birth was, or even what year. She filled the role of bratty sister perfectly, no matter what her age. Parker equally needled Hardison and Eliot and loved to reduce both to aggravated scolding. She'd learned early on that Hardison didn't mind being poked and that the best way to wind him up was to insult his electronics; Eliot, on the other hand, would simply give her a self-assured shark's grin whenever she tried to insult his abilities, and she'd learned that poking him always got a fun reaction. Winding up the entire team was also a pastime of Parker's.

Hardison was the baby of their dysfunctional family and certainly acted it on occasion. The young man wasn't even twenty-five yet had more talent than any four hackers together; his biggest failing was in forgetting not to get cocky. He'd get full of himself, run off at the mouth, and then Nate would have to call him out on it. He was also unbelievably good at getting Eliot riled up, and often sent Parker off into a tailspin with just a few carefully-chosen words. When left to just the three 'kids' it was Eliot who punctured Hardison's oversized ego, usually with a few choice insults, and that would spark off another round of bickering between them.

Nate usually sat back at his desk and watched the fireworks, head down to hide his struggle not to laugh, as his three youngest horsed around with each other. Only on very rare occasions did they physically tussle with each other, and all three usually backed off rather quickly when that happened. Parker didn't know restraint, or seem to realize that her strikes and holds could hurt even though the two guys took pains to avoid really injuring her. Eliot usually came away with a few bruises, courtesy of Parker for the most part, and a satisfied look in his eye at having outmaneuvered Hardison. Hardison usually came away with more than a bruised ego- he may have had muscles from working out, but his fighting skills were subpar and he tended to end up a little worse for the wear. As it never escalated beyond a brief bit of wrestling Nate never stepped in to stop it, confident that all three knew when to back off.

Yes, he lost his traditional family and still grieved for that, but he'd also gained a very non-traditional family in four thieves who accepted him, faults and all. Speaking of, Nate looked up and decided that it was time to end the current round of arguments for the night; those three could bicker all night but _he_ actually wanted some peace and quiet to sleep.


	24. If These Walls Could Talk

If the couch could talk, oh the stories it could tell! It enjoyed being the center of the family, no matter what the table liked to claim, as everyone spent time with it. Parker loved to sprawl across the center, locks and picks scattered on both sides, and sit for hours keeping in practice. She'd even occasionally pet the couch with affection, which it certainly appreciated. It didn't appreciate, however, the few times that Eliot forgot to respect it and vaulted over the back to take his seat. The vaulting was kind of fun, but one hundred and seventy pounds of muscle abruptly landing on it wasn't! Its springs wanted to groan in discomfort, but it always managed to remain silent and supportive for its friend. The couch paid special attention to Eliot- sometimes he'd relax for a few hours to watch the game, slouched against its armrest, but other times he would heavily collapse into the cushions. Those times the couch forgave him when cold water soaked into its upholstery from melting ice packs.

Hardison… now, the couch was of two minds with him. He didn't always spend time sitting down, preferring to stand and move while briefing the team, but he would spend hours enjoying the couch's comfort as he worked on the computers to protect their family. The couch always made sure to be at its most comfortable at those times. It always rejoiced when Sophie chose to grace it with her presence. Her clothing always felt so decadent against its upholstery and her perfume, so very light and slightly floral, tended to linger for a while after they all left. She always sat so gracefully, like a queen upon her throne. The one person who rarely accepted the couch's hospitality was Nate. He preferred to stand or sit on one of the chairs, but when he turned to the couch it was either an exhausted sprawl or because the chairs were already taken. It didn't like being a choice of last resort, but it accepted its place and enjoyed the people who regularly kept it company.

If any piece of furniture in the house had reason to feel proud, it was the kitchen table. Most of the time its family would sit singly for a quick meal, but there were many occasions where they'd all gather around to share food and stories. It particularly loved the big mealtimes- they would load its top with so much deliciously fragrant food that it could barely be seen, and then spend hours talking and laughing together. It also enjoyed spending more intimate single time with its family, too. Parker was the most inconsistent. She would take her bowls of cereal over to the couch, the kitchen counter, and occasionally ate while standing in the middle of the floor. Only about once a week did she actually eat properly at the table and it was thankful for that as she never wiped up after herself.

Eliot regularly ate at the table and it appreciated his table manners. He never dropped food to land on its surface and always made sure to wash its entire surface when he was finished. He was also the one who cooked the food for their family meals, and was the table's favorite. Nate also ate at the table regularly, but wasn't nearly as neat about it. His shaking hands usually dropped parts of breakfast on its top and he only swiped at cleaning up. The table hated to have dried food smeared on it! Sophie rarely ever ate in the loft, at the table or otherwise, but would occasionally snack a little. The table was always amused that the couch inevitably forgave its favorite person when she dropped crumbs on it.

The table only saw Hardison in passing, when not at family meals, as he was trekking to the refrigerator for more soda. He would also snack on the sofa, but the table had heard from the coffee table that Hardison was incredibly careful about keeping all foodstuffs on it and away from the rest of the furniture. He'd even wipe up any crumbs or spills, which the kitchen table agreed was considerate. It didn't want to brag, but it was the center of the team's family meals and was the most important piece in the apartment.

From their position in the middle of the apartment the spiral stairs smugly observed everything that went on in the apartment, from Parker sneaking upstairs to nose around Nate's belongings, to Hardison setting up practical jokes to catch Eliot and then having to run away from a highly irritated hitter. They gossiped with the desk about what how Nate and Sophie would stumble up the stairs, entwined with each other, and how articles of clothing would end up being thrown down to land on its railing. The stairs occasionally did have a bit of fun when Parker would suddenly decide to climb up its underside like a little blonde monkey, but Eliot usually yelled at her when she did that. The stairs were a little offended that he considered them to be so unsafe- their iron construction was still rock solid despite their age!

The apartment walls remained silent about all that went on within them. They listened with tolerant amusement as the furniture gossiped amongst themselves, each claiming the highest importance to the family, and watched over the family as they went about their lives. The bricks in the exterior walls were old, original to the building, but they still stood strong and their mortar didn't even think of crumbling. The interior walls had sacrificed a bit for the humans though- new doors were cut into them, holes were gouged for access to cables, and even a few holes had been punched by angry fists. Through it all though, they remained staunch guardians of the little lives inside them. Speaking of, it looked like there would be more entertainment coming as Eliot got a face full of feathers from one of Hardison's traps and went stalking silently to find the hacker for a little well-deserved revenge…


	25. Wolves

Hardison didn't only play video games and clean up after his team, he also loved documentaries. Better than sitting through boring classes where the person at the front of the room droned on and on, documentaries gave information along with visual entertainment packed into manageable hour long segments. He learned more about history and nature by watching documentaries as he worked on projects than he'd ever learned in school.

The last one he watched, about grey wolves in Yellowstone, truly hit a chord with him. The way that the alpha pair interacted was the way that Eliot and Parker interacted in the office. The Kerrigan girl had called the team wolves, but those two personified a mated pair. They weren't the mushy kind of love, with flowers and chocolates, but were the rock-solid kind where a single glance could stand in for an entire conversation and a simple touch was more intimate than any vulgar display of groping.

Hardison could see how people would miss their relationship given how quiet they were. Parker still did her best to wind Eliot up with her odd behavior, yet had a glint in her eye that belied her teasing. Eliot still got frustrated with Parker and yelled, stomping around, yet his jaw never clenched in true anger. They also trusted each other implicitly. Where Hardison had to ask Parker where she was at on the job, Eliot simply trusted that she would have her part of the job done without interference. Where Sophie looked around for Eliot when a con went bad, Parker just darted to the nearest exit and trusted that he would be there ahead of her.

Those two stood shoulder to shoulder against whatever they faced and actually balanced each other out. Parker brought levity to Eliot's heavily-ordered world, and Eliot brought steadiness to Parker's flighty nature. Hardison could see them surviving, as a couple, far better than he could see them surviving as lone wolves. He'd actually tried to begin a relationship with Parker himself, but they just didn't match up. His world was one part fantasy and one part virtual, and her logical mind couldn't understand his metaphors most of the time. Not to mention that he lived for casual touch in a relationship and Parker went out of her way to avoid it. No, theirs would have been a relationship straight out of a Hallmark movie- syrupy sweet, awkward, and entirely impossible in real life. They would have torn each other apart, one tiny piece at a time.

No, Hardison was thankful that he had realized just how unsuited they were and moved on. His Jessica matched him perfectly, except that she loved the new Star Trek better than the original, but he could work with that. Those two wolves were made for each other, and Hardison enjoyed watching their particular documentary. From a safe distance, of course!


	26. Horoscope

Parker helped herself to what she could find in Nate's kitchen; it was definitely time for someone to go shopping if she had to resort to her third-favorite cereal. She could hear Sophie rustling through the day's newspaper as they waited for the guys to finish with their parts of the con and come back.

"What's your sign, Parker?" Sophie called across the room, one section of paper folded back to reveal the comics and horoscopes.

She had to talk through a mouthful of cereal as Sophie had the worst timing. "What sign?" Parker meandered over to the table, pocketing a small statuette along the way. She'd find it a new home later, perhaps the bathroom this time?

Sophie looked up, slight frown of confusion on her face. "Your astrological sign," at Parker's blank look and shrug she tried a different approach. "No matter. What's your date of birth? I can figure out your sign from that and you can read your horoscope."

Parker shifted uneasily beside Sophie. It was a simple thing to her, but people always looked at her strangely when she explained. "I don't know. Social workers couldn't find my birth records and decided to put down September 15th as it was the day that I went into the system." Sophie had an odd pinched look on her face, so Parker hurried to explain the happier part. "Now I usually just pick the date of a heist if I have to fill out paperwork." She smiled at the thought of all the dates she'd used in the past, paying homage to some of the most impressive thefts.

Silence filled the space and Parker munched more cereal until boredom became too much. She leaned over Sophie's shoulder to read what these horoscopes were- odd predictions about one's day and love life, some even had warnings against doing certain things, and she didn't think that she liked those. "You are doing your best to live in the present moment today, and you may do it with so much gusto that you upset others. An excellent week in romance and a high rate of success is indicated," she read aloud from the one that caught her fancy. "I like that, and I like cats, so I'll be a Leo today- rawr!" Parker's exuberant roar broke the mood, sending them both into giggles.

She meandered back into the kitchen for another bowl of cereal and completely missed the sad look that Sophie aimed at her back before turning back to the paper. "I call dibs on the comics," she called back over her shoulder and heard Sophie murmur an agreement as rustling indicated that a new section was being perused. So, the horoscope claimed that she'd have an excellent shot at romance… well, she did have her eye on a certain fine specimen. Perhaps today would be the chance to steal his heart?


	27. Sleep

Eliot walked into his office, intent on catching a nap on his couch, and froze in the doorway. A slight sound, so small that any normal person would have missed, brought his eyes to his office's vent. Their building was older and had been retrofitted, so the vents were larger than normal… large enough that a certain cat burglar loved to use them for practice. He relaxed as he identified the cadence of her breathing and from its light sound concluded that she must have been sleeping in the vent, of all places.

He couldn't figure out why she'd choose _his_ vent over hers, but then she was insane and predictability wasn't her strong suit. Eliot mentally shrugged and decided that as long as she didn't try to mess with him while he napped, he'd just leave sleeping thieves lie rather than try to get her to leave. As he stretched out on the couch, the muted sounds of Los Angeles traffic provided a balance to her soft breathing and he easily dozed off.

*.*

Riding up in the elevator with Nate and Sophie, Eliot had to wonder if they were ignoring an obvious sign, or were truly that unobservant. Even an untrained eye could see that the access hatch in the elevator's ceiling was ajar, eye-catchingly out of place, and that no one else should have had access to this elevator. Hardison had bought the entire office building when it was seized from its previous corporate owners and they hadn't rented out the extra space yet; it would provide a good cover for Leverage Inc. but it would also mean that there would be extra eyes who could notice their comings and goings. Nate was still deciding if he wanted to deal with that or not.

Regardless, Eliot did the small repairs and they didn't have a maintenance person, so he let Nate and Sophie exit the elevator and gave them an excuse about having forgotten something downstairs. Nate grunted something unintelligible and headed to the office, presumably for alcohol, and Sophie gave an absent hand wave as she began another argument about his drinking. He waited for the doors to close and then used the handrail as a leg up to jump for the hatch's exposed ledge. Eliot dangled silently as the elevator, with no one recalling it to another floor, remained in position and he couldn't hear any movement in response to his actions.

He pushed the access door fully open, pulled his torso up to a more secure position, and scanned the top of the elevator car; nothing. A slight creak drew his attention directly above his head and he looked up. There, dangling upside down from the mechanical housing, was a sound-asleep Parker. Eliot blinked a couple of times as he processed the fact that she'd donned one of her harnesses and set up a rig system all for the purposes of catching a nap. In an elevator shaft. Upside down, like a skinny blonde bat.

From the relaxed smile on her face he discarded his first alarmed thought that she could have gotten stuck while testing something, and she even had her hands tucked into little nylon loops sewn into her harness. Her rigging held her safely above the elevator's highest position and out of the moving machinery, and Eliot had to admit that she'd planned her nap quite well. For sleeping in an elevator shaft, that is. Unwilling to wake her up and break whatever peace she'd managed to find, he eased back through the hatch, dangled as he pulled the door back down to the position she must have left it in, and then let go of the ledge. The drop to the elevator's floor wasn't far and he landed silently on his feet. He wouldn't breathe a word of Parker's incredibly odd sleeping place to the others- it wasn't their business to know, and she wasn't really hurting anything. At least now he knew why the access hatch was open and didn't have to worry about intruders. Worrying about Parker was a completely different set of issues.

*.*

The team had slowly meandered out of their offices for the night, Parker disappeared in her own way, Sophie claimed a need for 'beauty sleep', and Nate and Hardison had left after the late game ended. Eliot was doing a final walkthrough of the Leverage offices just to assure himself that all was well and that he could lock the building down as he left. All the offices' lights were off, coffee maker in the kitchen was off and the pot cleaned, and he detoured through the conference room to pick up his jacket on his way out. A glimpse of yellow under the table made him back up to better see, and then crouch down when that didn't work; he was pretty sure by now what he'd find and actually found himself rather impressed. While they were watching the game, Parker had apparently snuck into the room with them and curled up on the other side of the table's supports. She'd even dragged in a small throw pillow and a blanket at some point, and they all, Eliot included, had missed it. Parker hadn't disappeared- she was sound asleep under the table.

Eliot considered waking her up so that he could convince her to go home, wherever that was, but hesitated. She had seemed more tired than usual after their trip to Serbia and he suspected nightmares were the reason, even if she never said anything to them. He easily recognized the signs. Making up his mind, he slightly dimmed the room's lighting and retreated to his office across the hall. From there he could keep a discreet eye on her while he relaxed with a book on feudal Japan that he'd been intending to read during their next downtime.

*.*

Nate headed to the loft's door, intending to retrieve another bottle of alcohol from the bar, and Hardison took that as a good reason to high-tail it out of there in favor of playing online with his horde. Eliot remained in the kitchen to wash the dishes he'd used for the team's dinner, but he also had plans to make a quick getaway. Plans which were unnecessary as Nate came back through the door with a strange look on his face and no bottle.

"No, no, I just… changed my mind," he absently explained to Sophie's question and retreated upstairs without answering any of her other questions.

Sophie huffed in annoyance and bid Eliot goodnight as she left. Curious now, Eliot stalked down to the bar to find out what had tipped Nate's world on its side. Nothing amiss jumped out at him, other than a mess no doubt left by Hardison at some point, on one of the tables, and he proceeded to round the bar so that he could check on the till and Nate's stash. There, tucked away behind the expensive alcohol Cora kept out of easy reach of the patrons, was Parker. Eliot couldn't imagine how she had managed to tuck herself on the shelf behind the bottles, but there she was- curled up on her side and not a single bottle out of place. Crazy woman had to be part cat with how well she wedged herself into small spaces!

Eliot shook his head, quietly walked back to finish washing the dishes, and put Parker's choice of sleeping space out of mind. She had a home, complete with bed, where she could sleep if she wanted to, but she appeared to favor napping over the traditional eight hours and picked the most bizarre of places to do it in. Sometimes he worried that he'd become a little too accustomed to her particular brand of crazy.

*.*

Eliot walked through the bar's back room on his way through to the Wednesday night poker game he had with Nate and Hardison, and stopped in astonishment as what he'd just caught out of the corner of his eye registered. He would even grudgingly admit that his jaw loosened just a fraction. Unbelievably, Parker had managed to climb on top of the lighting scaffold that hung from the ceiling and was curled up on it, sound asleep. There was no ladder or chair in sight that she could have used, and it was too high up for her to have jumped… Eliot forcibly stopped that train of thought and shook his head. He wasn't going to drive himself mental trying to figure out _how_ Parker got up there, as it was obvious that she had. That scaffold, he knew from helping Cora install a new spotlight, could handle four hundred pounds more before it even thought of breaking free from its mounting, so her light weight was perfectly safe up there. He resolutely turned his attention away from the human-sized enigma and continued on to join in the game.

*.*

"No Eliot, you _owe_ me," Sophie emphasized, tipsy from their celebrations after the job. Normally he would have argued more with her, but Eliot really didn't want her trying to go upstairs by herself, given how she was listing sideways against Nate in the booth. He just put up his hands in surrender and left his half-finished beer on the table; he wasn't one for getting drunk and usually ended up playing chaperone for the others.

Once upstairs, he took a moment to remember that Sophie had hung her wrap in the closet rather than lay it on a chair, and he headed over to find it. It wasn't such a surprise to him, after several years of them, to find Parker curled up on the floor of the closet. This time she was the one wearing a surprised look as he calmly pulled the requested wrap off its hanger.

"I…" she tried to come up with an explanation and stalled out.

Eliot shook his head to stop her. "You're welcome to sleep wherever you want, Parker," he assured and watched as the tension drained from her face. He pulled down one of the longer coats he sometimes wore when he had to play grifter and draped it over her curled-up form. A lithe, pale hand snaked up to pull it snug around her shoulder and Parker gave him a tiny smile.

"Good night," he offered and waited until she nodded in reply before he shut the door. Seriously, he had to worry when his reaction to her insanity was simply to nod and accept it. Eliot remembered his errand and returned to the bar. He'd see Sophie and Hardison into cabs and make sure that Nate made it safely up the spiral stairs before he left. Parker he'd leave where she was; she'd leave after she woke up in a handful of hours.

*.*

This time Eliot was actually looking for Parker's hiding place. Nate had scooted up their time table by half a day and wanted Parker and Eliot to go and check out a supposedly abandoned building. The only problem is that Parker had apparently taken out her earbud and, from her disappearance, was holed up somewhere for a nap. He didn't say, but Eliot thought that he knew where she was, and simply told Nate that he'd go find her.

Sure enough, there was a scuff mark on the elevator's wall just above the handrail even if the access hatch hadn't been left ajar. It was too high for him to jump, as he wasn't built like Parker, Eliot headed up to the roof. After they'd moved to Boston, Parker had discovered a maintenance panel on the roof for the elevator, and used that as her exit whenever she practiced climbing in the shaft. He was willing to bet that she also used it as her exit when she'd been sleeping in the shaft.

"Parker!" Eliot called through the small aperture and heard a surprised exhalation that confirmed his suspicion. "Nate changed our time, we gotta leave now," he explained and then had to back up quickly to avoid being kicked as she wormed her way out feet first. Her disgruntled expression echoed his own as neither liked sudden changes to the plan.

Parker grumbled as she irritably shoved her earbud back into place and followed Eliot down to his truck. If he had to spend the afternoon in an abandoned building with a cranky Parker, he was going to stop for chocolate along the way. She'd be annoyingly hyperactive then, but at least she wouldn't be biting his head off every few seconds. As revenge on Nate, he could always keep back a second handful of chocolate bars to give her when they got back.

*.*

Eliot wanted a little peace and quiet, but with Nate and Sophie having a spat and Hardison loudly playing one of his video games on the big screens, peace and quiet was in short supply. He decided to get out of the loft until the urge to break a few heads passed, and took the stairs down to the bar. In need of a little unwinding, Eliot's feet turned toward the storage room where all the food items were stored. He could make a snack in the bar's kitchen and enjoy the solitude.

Two steps into the room and he stopped; the door to the supply cage, used in a previous era to store expensive alcohols, was closed when it normally stood open. Close scrutiny revealed the reason- Parker could barely be seen curled up on the top shelf, mostly hidden by shadows. Eliot didn't know why she'd closed the cage door, perhaps for security, but made sure to soften his footfalls as he moved to pick out what he wanted.

Twenty minutes later a blurry-eyed thief shambled into the kitchen to join him at the small staff table. Eliot gestured for her to help herself to the second plate of food he'd prepared, certain that the smells would wake her from her nap, and she dropped heavily into the chair across from him. Parker's sleepy expression vanished as she munched on the vegetables, at first not really paying attention to what was on the plate and then truly tucking in as the flavor hit. They both soon had empty plates and Parker nodded to Eliot in thanks before she drifted off in the direction of the front door. If she followed her normal habit, he knew that she'd head home now that she had her nap, and he followed suit. No reason for him to go back to the zoo upstairs, and he was now relaxed enough to want his own apartment and a good night's sleep.


	28. Pride

Sophie would easily admit that she was a proud woman- pride in her impressive pilfered art collection, pride in her likewise pilfered fine jewelry, and most importantly proud of her finely-honed abilities. It wasn't easy slipping into a new persona for every con, but she managed it superbly. She had to mentally create the person's life, including all the fine details which would trip up a lesser grifter, and had to create a believable accent. Most people couldn't tell the difference between a Belgian accent and a French one, but she always prided herself on picking the perfect accent for her persona just in the off chance that they ran across the rare mark who possessed a keen ear.

She also prided herself on always dressing for the occasion. Whether she was a southern horse trader or a member of one of the royal families, Sophie always made sure that she was properly kitted out for it. She had three closets full of rather varied clothing to choose from, one full room devoted to her shoes, and then added the little touches- the perfect coiffure and just enough jewelry to be tasteful. Too often, lesser grifters would overdo the clothing or jewels in an effort to distract the eye from their lackluster performances. Sophie, however, was the consummate professional and subscribed to five languages' worth of fashion and style magazines from across the world. Who knew when she'd need to know what the spring fashions looked like from Paris or St. Petersburg for example, but she was ready to play a proper Frenchwoman or Russian.

Sophie could react perfectly in character to unexpected changes, and knew enough about cultures to pull off a flawless performance. Authenticity: that was the mark of a great grifter, and Sophie prided herself on being the best. Undeserved pride, where one's abilities didn't live up to one's claims, nearly always led to a fall which crushed the stupid or inexperienced grifters; her pride though, was well-deserved. She worked very hard to keep her skills sharp and was always on the lookout for new ones to add to her mental toolbox; having a team depending on her doing an impeccable job was a change she'd had to become accustomed to, but now she also took pride in doing her part for them. Yes, Sophie would easily admit that she was a proud woman, but it was a hard-earned and well-deserved pride.


	29. Prison

He really was telling Sophie the truth that he didn't mind prison at all. Nate had committed a crime and was caught, so his sense of fair play dictated that he own up to his punishment. Plus it had the added benefit of buying freedom for his team, and he'd do far more than sit in jail to ensure the safety of those four. Now that he was out of prison, and leashed by the Italian, he would again step in to protect the four thieves who had become family to him. Their task would become an invisible prison until he could complete it, but he didn't mind it so much. Prison, after all, was only a state of mind and Nathan Ford was the master of his even if he did his best to pickle it with alcohol.

Prisons were his area of expertise, from both the physical to the mental. The first time he met Eliot they were sharing a dingy Singapore prison cell; he'd been thrown in there by his mark, a wealthy man determined to keep the insurance investigator from proving that he'd sold the 'stolen' Matisse, and Eliot had refused to say exactly why he was there, only that it involved interfering in an attempted kidnapping. Nate was smart enough not to continue questioning after he got a good look at the furious look in the man's eyes. Someone would be due for some payback just as soon as Eliot got free, and Nate didn't want to be in the way of the fallout. They'd eventually been released two days later when the man Nate had been investigating met with an ignominious death at the hands of a local prostitute; he'd been able to confuse a guard enough to secure a release for Eliot as well, and they both had to make a dash for freedom before the guard captain realized what had happened. Other than a case of fleas and desperately needing a bath, Nate had come out of the prison unscathed; the papers later reported that two warring families had annihilated each other, and Nate carefully refrained from attributing that to the man he'd shared a cell with.

Nate had even survived the prison in his head after Sam died, though that was the toughest by far. Alcohol didn't weaken its bars, and only the distraction of working with Sophie, Eliot, Parker, and Hardison could free his mind for a precious few hours. He was getting better, though, and had regained his mental control even if he'd never fully escape that particular prison. It was a state of mind, yes, but when the prison _is_ your mind, it simply becomes an exercise in enduring. Having four friends slowly become family also helped to chase back the prison walls, and Nate would do anything to pay them back for their unknowing rescue.


	30. Promise

**Written for my friend Brina… she requested a bit of Eliot and Parker interaction after _The Inside Job_ and this little bit of insanity was the result :D**

Eliot walked into Parker's warehouse and made for the center of the pool of light. He didn't have to wait long, as her black-clad form slithered down a rope until she was mostly at eye level with him… upside down. He sighed and decided against arguing her into having a proper conversation; after they day they'd had, his head was pounding and he couldn't muster up the energy to bother.

"You're upset with me," Parker stated, giving up her veneer of insanity as it was only the two of them. She secured her rope so that she could hang without having to hold on, and crossed her arms.

"You bet I am! What you did was dangerous and stupid, Parker," Eliot kept a level tone, even though he wanted to shout, and angrily shoved his hands into his jacket pockets to remove the temptation to grab and shake some sense into her.

Her eyes flinched closed for a brief second before her rebellious nature resurfaced. "It's none of your business what I do in my own time. You're only mad because you got dragged in on your day off." Parker flippantly claimed in an attempt to avoid an actual conversation. If she could get him angry enough, he'd just stalk off and they wouldn't have to discuss anything.

"No, I'm not mad that I got dragged in on that. I'm mad because I wasn't called in until _after_ you were already in trouble. You had no escape plan, no backup, and no way to call for help. If Leach hadn't called Nate-" Eliot cut himself off sharply and took a steadying breath. "I'm mad, Parker, because you needed me and I couldn't get in to help you. Do you have any idea how that felt for us, to know that you were in trouble and that we couldn't even look for you?"

Parker couldn't meet his eyes and released her foothold on the rope so that she could let gravity flip her upright. "I'm sorry," she apologized, remembering Sophie's teachings, "It was supposed to be a simple theft, and by the time that I got into trouble, I didn't have a way of calling for help."

Eliot reached out to gently grab her shoulders, again had to push back the urge to shake the infuriating woman, and held eye contact. "Promise that next time you do outside work, you'll call me. I don't care what the job is or whether Nate would approve or not, but I _will_ be there to watch your back and make sure you have an exit."

"I promise," she whispered, visibly thrown by the concern. Eliot looked after the team on jobs, but had little contact with them outside of that. Parker took a chance, bolstered by her admission earlier today that she had made her own family, and used his hold to pull herself in for a quick hug. Eliot twitched in surprise and she wound both arms around his neck and legs around his waist to keep Eliot from pulling back. It was an awkward affair with her hanging higher and the harness in the way, but after a second he relaxed and reciprocated with a gentle squeeze around her ribs. They both held the hug for a beat and then let go, Parker pushing off of him just enough to set herself spinning like a top.

He was still angry with her, but didn't see any sense in beating the topic into the ground. She'd agreed to his request and for Eliot that was more than enough; Parker rarely made promises, but the ones she did were scrupulously kept. The anger would fade, her radiant smile as she spun helped with that, and he let relief at having gotten her out of that damned building chase away the negative. They all made it out in one piece, thief included, and he hadn't given in to his baser urge to flatten Leach for his having treated the child Parker as a pet curiosity, an experiment rather than a child to be nurtured. He couldn't help but wonder if half her problems didn't stem from that man and his twisted ways of showing approval; Eliot didn't want to know how many times she'd been rebuffed when seeking affection to have learned that only stealing earned acceptance. No matter, the adult Parker was his responsibility now, and Eliot would be damned if he let anyone or anything hurt her while he was around. On a whim he ducked under a flying arm to grab her harness and spin her even faster, earning a bright peal of laughter for his efforts. Yeah, she certainly was insane, but he could work with that.


	31. Tailor-Made

**Bit of language used, but hey- it's Hardison :)**

* * *

Hardison routinely groused that no one appreciated all that he did, and he was right, dang it! Nate got to pass out in a drunken stupor after each job, Sophie got to disappear to do "girl things" after she tucked Nate safely in bed, Parker pulled a ghost and just plain disappeared, and Eliot stuck around for a few hours before he too left to appreciate some solo downtime. Hardison however, he was left all by his lonesome to keep right on working. Even his off time wasn't his own! He swept the entire building regularly for bugs, and that was a massive undertaking in itself. Off the top of his head, he knew of six varieties of electronic listening devices which different agencies used, not to mention the nearly infinite home-brew possibilities that rivals or past toppled marks could use. He had to sweep for all of them, passive and active, and everything in between, as well as making improvements to his existing bugs or replacements for the ones they had to waste in the course of a job. Did anyone ever stop to think how much work that was for him? Of course not! They simply demanded more equipment and expected that it would magically appear, perfectly tailored for their needs at the time.

Weekends, what there were of them, became devoted to tailoring costumes as no one else on the team bothered to make sure that they had the necessary props before deciding that they would play FBI agents, or whatever agency was the flavor of the week. Did Nate ever ask if they even _had_ badges or uniforms for the local police? Nope. He just casually mentioned that they'd be impersonating an agent and never spared a thought as to where the IDs, clothes, badges, and all would come from. No siree, not a one of them ever asked, or even offered to help. Typical! "Hardison's the geek." "Hardison plays online all day." Hardison works his damn ass off, is what he does!

He also electronically cleaned up after those ingrates. Every job they did spawned a host of identities and trails which had to be cleaned up, records deleted off of databases, and every single photo he could find had to be either destroyed or corrupted enough to be unidentifiable. Cleanup usually took an additional eight to ten hours, depending on how deep he had to vet the identities, and he did this all while the others curled up in their nice warm beds, or in the case of Parker, whatever odd place she decided to sleep that night. During the con, he was also kept up late setting up those identities as best he could before they were needed; one of the things he liked least was trying to create a deep cover story from scratch on the fly, which is usually what happened when they pitched a last-second demand into his lap. Every identity was tailor-made for their situation and persona, and that wasn't just a few clicks of the mouse!

The team did occasionally say 'thank you' in their own unique ways. He knew that Nate would sometimes drop a handful of gummi frogs bags into his desk drawer, to be discovered whenever Hardison next opened it. Sophie would spontaneously take him out to dinner at some of the most exclusive little restaurants in the city, some of which were traditional enough that they didn't use electronic reservation systems. Parker left… things… on his desk. He didn't know what all of them were but the ones he recognized included an early Byzantine coin, sealed vial of mercury, and a pair of jeweled chopsticks that he vaguely recognized from the write-up of their theft several years ago. The ones he couldn't identify were carefully deposited in a bottom desk drawer where they wouldn't be jostled; he didn't put it past her to have 'gifted' him with an explosive of some kind. Eliot, though, was the sneakiest of the bunch. He used several different identities to order shipments of orange soda to be delivered to Hardison's apartment, entire pallets of the soda. As a master of surveillance, something the others tended to forget about as applied to them, Hardison didn't have a single problem identifying who had been in his office or personal space, but backtracking Eliot's identities did entertain him for three whole days before he unraveled them.

Yeah, they were all truly adorable at times. The rest of the time he desperately wanted to shake them until their teeth rattled, but that was the deal with family- you could want to drop them off a cliff, yet you still loved and forgave them anything. And make no mistake, those four frustrating, amazing, terrifying, and beautiful thieves were as much his family as his Nana was, and he'd do everything he could to look after them. Even if none of their asses understood what all he had to do for them!


	32. Believe

Sophie kept an unobtrusive watch on Parker as they disembarked their flight from Belgrade and made their way to the office to regroup. If she were to bolt, she'd do it soon, and Sophie didn't want her to escape. The young woman had been severely rattled by this job and the memories that it dragged up; Sophie had spoken with Hardison on the flight and learned that Parker had opened up to him a little, but it still wasn't enough if the banked panic in her eyes was anything to go by. So, rather than attempt to corner her in the plane's confines, she'd try to catch her in the office's familiar surroundings.

Parker actually stayed through Hardison's rundown of how the orphans were already being rehomed courtesy of the WHO and drifted out of the room during Hardison and Eliot's sidebar argument about dinner. Honestly, Sophie didn't care whether a tomato was a fruit or vegetable, and didn't think that the boys did either; they just enjoyed the bickering. She likewise used their distraction to slip out after Parker. After checking her office and the kitchen area, Sophie found her sitting curled up on the floor in their supply closet.

"Now, what are you doing in here, Parker?" Sophie gently asked as she eased into the room and let the door swing closed behind her. Parker simply blinked at her for a few seconds and she used the opportunity to gingerly sit down beside the young woman. "Do you want to talk about it, darling? I'm willing to just listen if that's what you want," Sophie offered, gently bumping against her shoulder to get Parker's attention.

Parker blinked rapidly and finally turned to face her. "I just… it's hard to get the memories put back, you know?" she whispered.

Sophie took a chance and reached up to gently card her fingers through Parker's hair. It was the right move as she soon had a blonde head leaning against her shoulder, almost but not quite cuddling. "Once they escape the box you put them in, they are rather difficult to stuff back in," she agreed. There certainly were memories of her own past that she'd love to permanently forget, and sometimes they leaked out of her mental box to run rampant through her dreams at night.

"I remember the first foster home they put me in. They were so nice to the social worker and me, until she left me there. Their real daughter's bedroom was painted in light yellow, with flowers stenciled on the walls, and her bed looked like a princess'; it had a ruffled canopy and a thick pink comforter… it looked like it would swallow me up if I jumped on it. My room was bare white with a metal cot against the wall. I wouldn't have cared at all that they treated us so differently, if they had cared," Parker revealed, still tucked against her shoulder.

Sophie shifted just enough to free her arm and pull her in for a proper hug. She didn't voice any of the opinions racing through her mind and instead kept her offer to just listen. Parker shifted position slightly and Sophie gamely ignored the bony knee now jabbing into her ribs as Parker took a deep breath to continue.

"The worst was Mrs. Dufort. She didn't do anything to me, or much of _anything_ really. All she did was sit in the recliner all day, smoke and watch the soaps on TV. I did learn how to go without eating, though, since she didn't really cook or have much in the house to eat. She'd make something like macaroni and cheese for lunch and that was the day's meal, or she'd pick up a box of cereal at the store if she thought of it. I don't think she was all there in the head as she seemed more messed up than I did. At first I tried to get her attention but all she'd do was stare through me at the television, and she rarely talked to me. When she did it was usually about her stupid shows," she lightly scoffed. Sophie hid a smile at Parker's tone; she'd tried to interest the young woman in daytime television as a way of teaching her about obvious body tells, but Parker had been amusingly vocal in her refusal and disgust.

They sat in silence for a few minutes while Sophie continued gently carding through Parker's hair, and Parker picked at a loose thread on Sophie's pant leg. "The last one," she began softly. "The last one _I_ screwed up. David and April were great- they treated me like I was theirs, had food available all the time, I even had a pink comforter of my own! April would sit down with me at the table to help with my homework while David made dinner and I didn't have to do the dishes after. It was so wonderful that I couldn't trust it. I kept waiting for something to go wrong, for them to turn on me, and no matter how hard they tried I just _couldn't_ believe," Parker sniffled and Sophie gave her a gentle squeeze around the shoulders. "Eliot's right- there is something wrong with me. I ran away after three weeks and lived on the streets until Archie found me a couple of years later and looked after me."

Sophie couldn't remain silent. "Parker, sweetheart, there's nothing wrong with you," she gently rebutted, "Mental conditioning isn't something that you can easily break, especially at that young age. What matters is that you survived; you ended up as a brilliant, strong, self-sufficient young woman. We all have a past and none of us will ever judge you for yours," Sophie promised. She felt Parker nod slightly against her shoulder and felt reassured that she'd gotten at least something through to her.

"But what if this doesn't last? I'll have…" Parker started, and Sophie interrupted her worried ramble before she could build up into a panic.

"I will give you my phone number, just in case. This is _my_ mobile, not one that Hardison arranged, and only my family has the number," Sophie shifted just a bit to pull out the tiny little mobile phone and let Parker see the number displayed on its screen. She knew from experience that Parker would remember that number with perfect recall, the same way that she could with access codes and security blueprints, and wouldn't need to write it down. "If we ever break up or separate, you can always ring me up any time you need me. I don't care if it's for help or just to talk- I will always answer. Do you understand?"

Parker drew back to actually look her in the eyes for the first time since she'd sat down beside the young woman and seemed to consider the question. "If this doesn't last, you'll let me call you, even if it's for something silly?" she clarified dubiously.

"Even for something silly," Sophie affirmed. In the few months they'd been together Parker had become something of a younger sister to her and she couldn't help but want to look after Parker; something in the young woman's eyes always reminded her of the children beggars she'd seen crowding the streets on the one ill-fated con she'd attempted to run in Tanzania.

Parker stared for a few more seconds and then popped to her feet, mood seemingly boxed back up again. "Okay, I believe you," she said and smiled a bit.

Sophie tried to get up and groaned. "Would you help me up, please? Adults were never meant to sit on the floor this long!" A hand popped into view and she grabbed it to be gently hauled to her feet. Her hips and spine sharply protested the abuse she'd put them through, but she couldn't care less. Parker was happy again and reassured of her place here, that's all that mattered, not the discomfort of sitting on a carpet-covered concrete floor for an hour. Parker all but skipped through the door and off to parts unknown while Sophie hobbled out at a much slower speed.

"So?" Nate's voice surprised her as she rounded the corner to her office. He was leaning against the wall and looked to have been waiting there for a while. She motioned for him to follow her in while she made her way over to perch at an angle on the settee.

"You owe me a back rub, mister!" Sophie ordered and sighed in relief as his hands found the knots forming along her lower back. "I think she's back to normal again, or whatever is normal for Parker," the two chuckled at memories of her quirks, "and she'll eventually believe in us if we all give her time and space to work it out. She'll settle in."

"We can do that. Hardison would do anything for her at a moment's notice already, and Eliot is… well, Eliot. He won't push her for more trust than she's willing to give. We'll just have to believe in her until she's ready to believe in us in return." Nate finished his massage and drifted off, presumably in search of a drink. Sophie let the silence wrap around her as she leaned back against the cushions only to have it broken by the discreet chirping of her personal phone.

She recognized the number and shook her head tolerantly. "Hello Parker," Sophie greeted, "Yes, you may still ring even if we haven't split up… No, I haven't seen it yet… I'll meet you there," she stared at the phone for a second in amusement. Parker had called to test her promise, as she'd mentally predicted to herself, and now Sophie found herself talked into sitting through some movie that Parker wanted to see. She'd been guaranteed by Parker that "lots of explosions and blood and a plot to blow up Hitler" would be involved in the film. Not exactly her taste in entertainment, but she'd sit through it just like she sat through that horrid ship movie with her niece last year. Caring for people _did_ call for sacrifice at times. With a groan, Sophie dragged herself back up to standing and collected her jack and purse for the outing. At least in the theater she'd get to sit in a chair!


	33. Stepladder

"Hardison, can I borrow you for a minute?" floated through Nate's loft and brought their hacker running to see what Parker needed him for. Parker flashed him a wide smile which, had he stopped to think, should have sent him back out of the room at speed. "Just stand over here," she directed, pushing him this way and that, positioning just so, "and put your arms right… there." Parker stepped back to survey and then stepped close enough to make Hardison gulp. "Don't move," she whispered in his ear.

Hardison frantically nodded in response and then nearly jumped out of his skin as she began _climbing_ up him. One little foot pushed against his thigh while her opposite hand pulled against the handhold she had on his neck, then stepped up onto his waist, braced arm, and finally up to his shoulders. He did his best to not fall over and dump her to the floor, but surprise made him a little uncoordinated.

"Hold still!" Parker easily kept her balance but still had to scold. At that point, Nate walked into the room and froze, glass just touching his lips. He deliberate took a swallow and Hardison waited while it felt like Parker kept on doing whatever she was doing up there.

"And what, exactly, are you two doing?" Nate finally asked. A small smirk hovered at his lips and Hardison cringed. He could see days of ridicule in his future.

Parker huffed out a loud sigh, as if what she was doing should have been glaringly obvious. "I left something up in the rafters and couldn't reach it. Standing on the chair was too short, and the last time I stood on the _back_ of a chair, Eliot yelled at me. Hardison is just the right height and doesn't mind me using him as a stepstool, right?" She directed the last part down to her human support.

"Huh? Oh, no I don't mind at all," Hardison quickly assured, pulling his mind out of the daydream it had slipped into. "_Really_ don't mind. Use me anytime you want," he babbled. A snort of amusement quickly cut off his nervous stream of words and he refocused on Nate who looked like he was bursting to comment, yet only raised his glass in a toast and retreated back out of the room.

Parker seemed to find what she was looking for as she stepped off of his shoulder and gracefully dropped to the floor. "Thanks!" she chirped brightly as she barely brushed his cheek with a light kiss and skipped off with a cloth-wrapped parcel in her hands.

"A-anytime!" Hardison managed to call after her. He slowly wandered off towards his office, completely addled by their beautiful yet insane thief.


	34. It was like this

Nate and Sophie looked up in alarm as the apartment door flew open to admit three very bedraggled young thieves trying to hold each other upright. Eliot looked like a half-drowned cat, Hardison's face was swollen and covered in blood, and Parker's eyes didn't focus right. What stopped them from jumping up to insist on a trip to the hospital were the three bright grins and raucous laughter emanating from the battered figures. From the whiff he got from across the room, Nate was certain that their imbalance was partially due to being drunk as well as injured.

"Does anyone want to explain?" Nate evenly asked, caught between exasperation and amusement. Sophie had no such dilemma and snickered into her coffee cup. She'd been around for quite a few football matches, and the resultant riots, so the three in front of her were not alarming.

Three heads snapped around to the dining nook and nearly sent themselves crashing to the floor with the sudden movement. "Erm… well, it was like this…" Hardison stuttered once he was semi-stable between Parker and Eliot.

"It was all Hardison's fault." Parker pointed with the hand already wrapped around his shoulder. Her other hand dangled and dripped a bit of blood onto the floor from cuts on her knuckles.

Hardison vehemently shook his head before wincing in pain. "Oh no you don't, woman! I wasn't the one who started it." He tried to glare, but the effect was diminished by only having one eye not swollen shut. Eliot grunted and shoved him back upright from where he'd listed to the side.

Parker made an offended face, "I had everything under control before _you_ waded in and started throwing punches! Do you even bother to look when you hit?"

"That guy had a hundred pounds on you!" Hardison fired back as he swayed drunkenly between them. "Besides, it wasn't a brawl until Eliot stuck his nose in, so really it's his fault." Hardison knocked into a fuming Eliot as Parker overbalanced into him.

Nate and Sophie simply remained frozen at the table, amused beyond belief at the pathetic sight the three presented. They watched as the younger thieves wavered and tried to hold each other up, Sophie's head tilted to the side in imitation of Eliot's.

"Damn it, Hardison, it ain't my fault either! You didn't even see the guy who was going to cave in your head with his bottle, and Parker was up on the bar playing some demented form of keep-away with that biker!" Eliot's typical yell was rather hoarse and far quieter than normal. He shook his head, spraying droplets of heaven only knows what around him. "Don't know what they threw me into, but I _still_ got that crap in my ears," he swore softly to himself and staggered into Hardison.

Nate ignored their renewed bickering and frowned at the mess they made. Blood and drips of _whatever_ decorating his floor decided that he'd had enough of entertainment and was rapidly heading into exasperation. "All three of you, shut up." His barked order was met with three glares, even if they were slightly unfocused and not at all threatening. "Eliot, Hardison, take the showers down here. Parker, Sophie will take you upstairs. I don't want to hear another word out of any of you until you're all washed up and back in here, got it?" Nate added his own glare and ignored Sophie's light laughter as she stepped around to help brace Parker for the trip upstairs; Hardison and Eliot remained leaning against each other and staggered to the washroom by their offices. Before pulling blankets and pillows out of the closet, he took a healthy swig of his coffee and wished that it had alcohol in it to help dull the headache that had started pounding in his temples.

An hour later saw three still-battered but much cleaner thieves standing in the living room again. "I don't even want to know how the three of you can turn a simple Friday night out into fight club, so save your excuses. What you _will_ be doing is bedding down here where I can keep an eye on you, and tomorrow morning, bright and early, you are going to get up and clean up the mess you've made on your way in. I don't know what you were dumped in either, Eliot, but it's drying into some sort of slime that you'll have fun trying to scrape up. Now, there are your beds," Nate indicated the pallets he'd put together on the floor, "and I'd suggest sleeping while you can because morning is only five hours away. Good night." He flipped off the overhead lights, leaving on the ones they all tended to use as nightlights, and calmly retreated upstairs with Sophie. If he had to get up in five hours to supervise those three idiots, he would need his own sleep- tomorrow would not be a fun day, though he was certainly going to enjoy their well-deserved misery!


	35. The Vatican Won't Be the Same

Nate turned the paper to the international news section and frowned. "Parker, when were you in the Vatican?" he asked suspiciously after reading the headline article.

"What makes you think I was there?" Parker kept up an innocent face, but he could see the mischief in her eyes.

Sophie, Hardison, and Eliot noted her tone of voice and gravitated closer to eavesdrop. "Because someone broke into one of the Vatican museums, and you're the only I know of who has an obsession with Caravaggio's works."

"You stole from the Vatican?" Sophie exclaimed in shock, forgetting that she had only intended to listen in.

Parker gave her an irritated look and snorted. "I didn't _steal_, exactly, just broke in and had a little fun; Nate nags too much when I steal from museums." She sighed in disappointment at his obvious lunacy. Who in their right mind expected a thief to keep her hands to herself?

"What did you do, Parker?" Eliot growled, obviously considering ways that this could come back to bite the team.

Nate folded the paper around to display the article. "According to this, an 'unidentified vandal' somehow broke into the museum, bypassed the Vatican's security, and stole a Caravaggio off of the wall. What I don't get is- why remount it on the wall over a urinal?"

Three thieves froze as they processed the last part and considered how they could have heard that wrong. Parker, however, snickered. "Well, I couldn't steal it, and why not the bathroom? I bet they only found it when a guard had to go pee… wonder if he wet the floor when he saw it," she mused, imagining the comedy in her head. "Anyway, the hardest part of it all was getting the plaque set into the wall without making any noise; learned a new technique just for that, so it was a good training exercise."

"We gotta get you a new hobby, mama," Hardison muttered and willfully ignored her baffled look.

Nate took a deep breath to fortify himself. "Look, I know that I have no right to forbid you from doing what you will on your downtime, but the next time you break into a museum, tell one of us. If anything went wrong, you could be hurt or caught and we wouldn't know where you went, okay?" He settled for pointing out the security risk she presented rather than giving her the scolding that desperately wanted to spill out.

"Yeah, okay. Whatever," Parker agreed with a shrug and swiftly darted over to the rig she kept outside the east window. While still funny to her, the others didn't seem to share her opinion, and she could cheerfully skip their comments. Besides, she was still in the planning stages of her infiltration of the Met, and had though up a few more ideas…

**A/N: I wholly blame Lisette for my insane muse on this one. She hoped for a new chapter, and see what happened?! Now I gotta go shopping for a new straightjacket for the muse, crazy thing chewed through the last one…**


	36. Mine

Written for the prompt 'mine' given by my partner in crime, Brina (Brinchen86). Why go for the obvious meaning when I can have fun with the dictionary instead? :)

* * *

"You're supposed to be hunting the others, Parker, not hiding!" Parker didn't bother to look over her shoulder at Eliot's hissed complaint. Instead, she absently waved him down to join her on the ground under a cluster of honeysuckle vines while keeping her attention firmly forward.

Joining her, Eliot could now see the target of her focus- Hardison. The geek was creeping from cover to cover in what must have been his idea of 'stealthy'; to Eliot's trained eye it looked more like a cross between drunk and constipated. "Wha-," he started to ask, only to be cut off by Parker's impatient shushing. Giving up for now, Eliot settled into a more comfortable position on his belly and observed Parker watching Hardison. As Hardison moved further towards a small clearing, Parker tensed with anticipation, until finally…

BOOM

Parker wriggled out from under the bush and took off running, a very stunned Eliot following closely behind. "I got you! I so got you!" she crowed as she raced up to a green-drenched, shell-shocked Hardison and danced around him.

"Parker!" yelled from two throats as both men tried to get her attention. As she finally stopped moving, Hardison indignantly wiped green paint from his eyes and glared. "Land mines aren't allowed in paintball," he grated out, spitting a mouthful of paint onto the ground.

Shaking her head hard enough to send hair flying, Parker replied, "Yes they are. I checked- there is no rule against using modified Soviet land mines, so I got you fair and square." She stuck out her tongue as she made her point.

"Parker, why did you use a mine when we're playing paintball?" Eliot asked, trying to hold his patience. This could have gone wrong, so very wrong, if she'd made even the slightest miscalculation. Given that it was Parker, that risk was somewhat low, but even she had to have her off days with explosives.

Parker gave him an incredulous look. "Running around with a fake gun and shooting each other is boring. This made it more exciting and unpredictable!" Hardison groaned to himself while he wiped his face clean with the bandana Eliot handed him.

"Mama, 'unpredictable' sounds like you got more of these things out here. How many land mines did you bring?"

Shifty looks and silence met Hardison's question, which was answer enough. A fainter boom sounded off to their left, followed by a woman's scream of outrage, and Parker's eyes grew big as she realized that Sophie must have been caught by that one. "I need to run now, right?" she asked as she fit action to words and took off into the underbrush, hitter and hacker bare seconds behind her. When Sophie was on the warpath, there was no such thing as 'innocent bystander', only collateral damage!


	37. Possession

For the awesome Brina's prompt 'possessive' which I tweaked a bit... It's much shorter than I usually post and for that reason it very nearly stayed on my LJ page.

* * *

Bottles barely clinked as they were carefully removed from the refrigerator, and the intruder froze. No one came to check on the noise so he continued loading them into a box he'd brought along just for this purpose. All forty-seven bottles were safely packed away, and he gingerly lifted the heavy package, resisting the urge to laugh. Hardison may have thought he could steal the sandwich, deny having eaten it, and get away free, but Eliot had other plans. All of Hardison's orange soda was now in his possession, and he wouldn't be getting it back until Eliot had an admission of guilt and apology- possession was nine-tenths of the law, after all… and besides, what was a little hostage-taking between friends?


	38. Hot

Written for Brina's prompt 'hot'. Think I managed a few more synonyms than just the prompt ;) Written with an established Eliot/Parker/Mikel Dayan relationship.

* * *

Parker kept herself awake to simply bask in a very rare peace. She was tucked, as always, between Eliot and Mikel in bed, held by both even as they reached out for each other, and she loved every minute of it. Their body heat warmed her all around, though in summertime they did have to drop the temperature or she'd end up too hot for comfort as no matter which way she decided to lay the other two would readjust in their sleep to cuddle back in. Parker didn't know if she was put in the center because they were trying to protect her, being in the middle of two deadly people would certainly be the safest place in the world, or if they were putting her there because they were possessive- she belonged to _them_. Either way, she wouldn't even think about complaining.

No matter what heated antics they got up to in the bed before sleeping, they always ended up with Mikel on the side that had all the windows, Eliot on the side with the door, and Parker happily ensconced between them. At times like this, Parker stayed awake long after the other two dropped off, breathing slow and even as they trusted each other enough to risk deep sleep, and would lie awake to enjoy their warmth, the pressure of their sleep-heavy limbs laying across her body, one's breath tickling the side of her neck, and the simple joy of having her love returned by these two incredible people.


	39. Hold Me

Written for Brina's prompt "hold me"...

* * *

Parker wriggled, reached, wriggled again, and then huffed out a breath. For a cat burglar, having something lie juuuust out of reach was nearly the height of annoyance. She repositioned on the railing, tried to hook her sneakers into a crack in the mortar, and nearly fell over this time as her toehold abruptly slipped. Parker flipped upright, shook her hair out of her eyes, and stopped to think. As she stood, inspiration walked by.

"Eliot!" She exclaimed with joy- here was a solution! The man in question turned and, upon seeing her delighted face, suddenly became very wary. He may have had the right to be cautious, Parker offhandedly concluded, as she and Hardison had recently launched a rather… creative series of pranks against the paranoid man.

Eliot tentatively walked over to join her on the hotel's balcony. "Yes, Parker?"

"You know that Hardison's hotel room is right below this one, right? Well, he left his laptop out on the balcony table, and I wanted to steal and hide it somewhere. He'd never think to look for it up here in Nate's room, especially since he doesn't expect us to be back from our jobs yet." Parker bounced on the balls of feet as she watched him parse her quickly-spoken words. Eliot's face went from somewhat annoyed, to blank, to mischievous.

After he sat his cup of tea down on the tiny table nearby, Eliot joined her out on the balcony to look over and spot the vulnerable laptop. "How we gonna do this?" None of Parker's rigging was in sight, so her idea wasn't immediately obvious.

"I can nearly reach it if I hang off the bottom of the balcony, but I can't reach any further without falling. I need you to hold me and provide a counterweight so that I can easily lift it and climb back up," Parker explained. Eliot considered the physics and must have decided that it could work because he stepped over to the railing and gestured for her to get on with it.

Parker easily scaled the railing and inverted herself to her previous position, and then waited for Eliot to anchor himself and grab onto her ankles so she could let go and hang freely. Doing so gained her the precious two inches she'd lacked before, and she carefully snagged the laptop's open lid, being sure to safely close it once she'd brought it up close enough. Reversing the entire deal was a little trickier given that her hands were occupied and she really didn't want to drop or squish the laptop, but they managed.

Now, where to hide it? Parker's eyes darted around the room's communal space; even though this was officially Nate's room, the team tended to commandeer it whenever they were at loose ends as jobs wrapped up and they were waiting for the next phases. Another idea hit and she let an evil grin lift her lips. The last place Hardison would look… Parker darted off to hide the thin laptop under the clothing in Nate's suitcase, completely disregarding the frilly lingerie incongruously hidden inside. She easily recognized several as Sophie's, though she didn't know why they'd be there- maybe her suitcase had a problem and Nate was helping her out? Objective complete, Parker rejoined Eliot and they settled in to wait for the entertaining fireworks that they knew would come when Hardison discovered that "his precious" was missing and went frantically searching for it.


	40. Secret

Parker eyed the racks of 'clothing' with extreme distaste and turned to glare at a very amused Sophie. "Why drag me in here? I don't need any of this… stuff!" she exclaimed, waving her hands to indicate the garments and trying to back out into the relative freedom of the mall concourse. Sophie smoothly blocked her escape and herded her deeper into the store.

"Well, I know that you and a certain _someone_ are involved, and all men love this kind of thing," she serenely replied, eyeing Parker's form to gauge her sizes.

A few seconds of surprised silence passed. "How did you know that? It's a secret! Have you been reading my mind?" Parker hissed, now completely freaked out.

"Parker, darling, I simply watched you two interact and it was obvious that you were together. Well, obvious to me anyway; I don't think that the others have caught on, but they're men and rather thick about things like this." Sophie held up a rather skimpy number with an alarming amount of lace. At Parker's horrified face, she tucked it back in the rack and decided to keep looking. A lovely pink bit of fabric was snatched out of her hand and unceremoniously shoved into a very inappropriate place on a hapless mannequin nearby. Sophie held her tongue and moved on.

Three trips to the fitting room quickly taught Sophie that trying to fit Parker into any of the lacy garments was like trying to stuff a furious cat into a sack- both vexing and painful for all involved. Two hours, five trips to the fitting room, eight foiled escape attempts, and three traumatized store clerks later… they finally agreed on the same garment. It covered more than it revealed, had a distinct lack of frills, and contained only two shades of color- sapphire blue and golden yellow. As they left the store with Parker's shopping bag in hand, Sophie let out a massive sigh of relief. Victoria's Secret may never be the same, but that store was only a stepping stone in what she wanted to teach Parker. Maybe one day she could introduce the younger woman to the joy in life that was La Perla…

-  
Written for the prompt 'secret' from Brina… feel free to imagine whatever Parker pairing you ship- was left ambiguous for just that reason ;)


	41. Passions

After their last job, a man's passion taken to extreme form with uncontrolled excess, the team separated for a little private time, each thoughtfully considering their own passions.

Parker was the least bothered- her passion was one she'd honed, internalized to the point of second nature, and absolutely adored. She was a natural-born puzzle solver… only her chosen puzzles were of a far larger variety than the tabletop kind favored by "normal" people. Parker's puzzles were found in elegantly winding her way through an impossible laser grid, tickling her way into an uncrackable safe, and breaking in to a supposedly "secure" facility. They were all puzzles which teased her mind and inspired her mischievous creativity, daring her to solve them. If taken to an extreme, she could see where uncontrolled activity could lead to her getting caught- increasing odds were never a thief's friend. Still, she counted on the others to help keep the balance, and still lived for her puzzles.

Nate's passion both saved the team, and put them into danger repeatedly- his passion for justice. In the early days, he'd risen to the top of the investigators at IYS by devoting himself to his cases. If a client was the victim of honest theft, he'd championed their case to his bosses, often to the point of censure, but always made sure that they received the justice they were due. If a client was trying to trick the company, though, he pulled out all the stops to prove their duplicity and see that they were properly punished. With his team, he had an opportunity to pursue justice for the everyday person, the one who couldn't seek his or her own justice. Those cases brought his focus squarely on the target, and sometimes blinded him to trouble along the way; he'd even let it take him over to the point where his own team had threatened to walk away if he didn't gain control.

Hardison didn't think that his passion could get too out of control, especially as it brought him so much joy. He loved creating. Nana had introduced him to paints on his second night in the home, when he couldn't sleep in the then-strange house and had crept down to the living room to sit and wait for the safety of dawn. She'd pulled him aside, given him a pile of paper and paints, and left him to while away the dark hours making bright creations on the blank pages. He'd since improved to the point where his paintings were indistinguishable from professional artists. Just painting couldn't contain Hardison's love of creation- he'd branched out to music first, and then electronics, and eventually to sewing. Their massive collection of "official" uniforms was his creation, carefully tailored to each team member, and entirely accurate down to the last stitch. And his genius with electronics? He could masterfully build even the smallest circuit for their earbuds so beautifully that it could be put on display as art rather than an oft-ignored tool. He didn't dare exhibit any of his creations- that would bring public focus onto him, and the team by extension, and would make it exponentially more difficult to hide from notice. No, Hardison contented himself to limiting his art to the team, even if they tended to take it for granted.

Passions were Sophie's stock in trade- they were how she enticed a mark, ensnared him, and thus owned him. But her own passion was one which she would ruefully admit was positively absurd for a woman of her talent- acting. She knew she was rubbish at it, could drive audiences to tears even with a light-hearted comedy… but she just couldn't stop herself. Her heart desperately yearned for the stage and she could do little but follow it. Sophie always adored her teammates when they tried to bolster her spirits after a performance; their actions showed a far deeper love than mere friendship, and she could never repay their loyalty. Acting was also a dangerous endeavor, for if she was ever catapulted into stardom, as some were, she'd be recognized by more than a few of the curiously watching eyes. Success in her chosen passion could lead to discovery of the wrong kind, so she accepted her limitations, didn't try to better them, and simply enjoyed doing what she loved.

Eliot had many things he loved, like cooking, but there was only one true passion in his life- women. He loved them all, from short to tall, soft to firm, exotic to all-American… they were all goddesses in his eyes and he just couldn't wait to worship. He loved their scents, so varied as to be an addictive bouquet, and especially loved the feel of their skin. Hours could be spent with his partner where he indulged in lightly tracing up and down limbs, feeling the skin pull up in goose bumps at the ticklish touch, or giving a massage so that he could enjoy the drag of her skin pulling at his hands and muscles relaxing under his expert knowledge. His partners always left extremely satisfied, and Eliot loved that too- that he could give them an experience they'd never forget. Even the female form was a wonder to him, with all its curves and interesting places to explore. To his eyes, evolution had achieved perfection when it came to women, and he was enthusiastically addicted. Even through all of this, he was very careful in his selection. More nights than not he sent himself home alone, keeping a distance between each of his partners; it was safer this way as he'd known many of his old profession who were taken down by the oldest trick in the book- an assassin wearing nothing but a beguiling grin. In response he'd varied the length of time between partners, where he looked for them, and which hotels they used, and above all was careful to control his passion lest it lead him to a very enticing but ultimately fatal encounter.


End file.
